For victory, both Rahul and Modi need an image makeover, if not an attitudinal change

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With the general elections almost two years away speculation is rife. The favourite question doing the rounds is whether the Congress led by Rahul Gandhi will be able to defeat a NDA alliance led by Narendra Modi?

There are many ifs and buts. A major blow for Modi was the recent conviction of his minister Maya Kodnani in the 2002 Gujarat riots. Modi’s claim that no evidence had been found of the Sangh Parivar’s involvement in the anti-Muslim riots has been severely dented. Rahul has a different set of problems, particularly economic.

Inflation has risen steadily and the recent hike in petrol, diesel, and LPG products together with the widely controversial Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail trade may create a difficult situation for the Congress in time for the general elections.

Rahul’s problems are not just the Opposition (NDA) but also his own allies. Mulayam Singh Yadav is obviously trying all sorts of political combinations. As he put it, he is not a saint and has a legitimate right to be the prime minister. Rahul’s electioneering has been sporadic. There has been no sustained campaign by him for a long period excluding those for the UP elections in which the Congress was trounced.

The problem with the Congress is that it is largely a collection of coteries, caste groups and dynasties. Its organisational structure is loose. On the other hand, the Sangh parivar has the solid bedrock of the RSS at its core together with the VHP, BMS, ABVP and other fronts. However, the famous wave factor may come into account. But one can speculate on that only much closer to the elections.

Modi has serious organisational problems. Many of his senior party colleagues disapprove of his attitude and consider him brash and temperamental. For example: he talks of his contribution to Gujarat’s growth. But he does not refer adequately to his predecessors like Chimanbhai Patel. Not to speak of the major contribution by Madhavsinh Solanki to the development of the state.

Amongst older Sangh activists this must rankle. The massacre in Gujarat 2002 has still polarised the state. By and large, the secular vote, including the Muslims, will be stridently against Modi in the next elections in Gujarat. But the moot point is how the events in Gujarat will affect other constituencies in the country where the NDA will try and project a more neutral and much less communal image.

The real problem for Modi would therefore depend on the decision of the RSS on whether he will be anointed the prime ministerial candidate or not. In some senses, Modi has been his own worst enemy. A false poster showing him together with Nitish Kumar enraged the latter and he demanded the withdrawal of the poster, which was duly done.

These are the kind of antics that get Modi into trouble. But there is another deeper problem that Modi will have to face. In a country where minorities are more than 20 per cent, Modi will have to refashion his image into that of a more secular, tolerant and open-minded politician. In a general election, the yet unexplained burning of the Sabarmati Express and the new questions raised by the recent court verdict which went against the Sangh Parivar, including the conviction of ministers like Maya Kodnani, is a potentially dangerous blow. If some more of these verdicts are arrived at it will be very difficult for Modi to do a makeover of his political image.

Rahul in contrast has a much cleaner image and has much less to answer for. His main problem is the lack of a sustained campaign well before the elections when economic decisions have tarnished the Congress image. There is no indication of any galvanising by the Congress of its dormant organisations to take on the formidable Sangh Parivar.

Of course Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a brief explanation of the price hikes and the bringing of FDI into the sensitive retail sector which employs some 44 million families. Whatever the PM may say, many will still have doubts until the coming months show otherwise. In any case the farmers and transporters will find the diesel hike increasing their costs.

Talking of reforms as a panacea will only convert the converted. For the majority Indians prices will go up even more sharply. And the allusions the Prime Minister made about bringing the economy out of a morass in 1991 will have few takers.

Therefore, the Rahul vs Modi struggle will operate on two different planes. For Rahul, it is largely the economy and to a lesser extent dynasty. For Modi, it is his national and international image as the overseer of the communal holocaust of 2002. Both will find the going tough. 

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After a period of relative inactivity, Rahul Gandhi is beginning to get involved again in party matters. Pramod Kumar examines what it means in the run up to the 2014 elections

For the Nehru-Gandhis, to enter national politics and immediately establish their suzerainty is but a natural sequence of events. Contemporary Indian history, from Jawaharlal to Sonia, will willingly vouchsafe for it. Neither in the case of Indira nor Rajiv was the transition to active politics ever in any doubt.

Then what it is that is keeping Rahul Gandhi away from the family occupation? There is that something that continues to raise question marks over his leadership, indeed even his entry into national politics.

Since the disastrous UP assembly election results, these interrogatives have grown in number. Was Rahul’s entry into politics not well timed? Or did it come at a time when political conditions were adverse for the Congress?

This strange, slightly unexplained vacuum at the top has prompted a series of strategic discourses. There is one school which says the time to introduce sister Priyanka Gandhi has come – an oblique hint that the heir apparent may not have what it takes to handle the hurly-burly of Indian politics.

The other school of thought believes that like father Rajiv, Rahul will gradually mature into politics, learn the ropes and come into his own.

There is also the view that laptop experts in Rahul’s central Delhi office may know a lot about information technology but precious little about India’s political ethos. But nuances notwithstanding, central questions remains unanswered. When will Rahul reveal his magic? Could it be too late before he shows his hand? There are those like UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav who believe that Rahul should agree to a position either in the government or the party and then take it from there. Congress insiders say that Rahul could accept a super general secretary kind of position in the party. Showing due deference to party elders, Rahul had accepted the relatively humble position of general secretary; in reality he could have got anything he wanted.

But it is quite likely that this deference has been seen as a weakness by party stalwarts. The kind of statements issued by senior Congress leaders in the run up to the UP elections without Rahul ever interfering once, has given him the image of a 'soft’ leader. With his elevation as general secretary of the party’s youth wing, Rahul had hoped to develop a dedicated band of Youth Congress workers. A failed talent hunt through the states put paid to his plans.

There are many reasons being attributed to this aborted mission, the most prominent of them being that virtually every senior Congress leader wanted his son or daughter to join Rahul at the cost of dedicated party workers – with preferably a party ticket to boot!

Proof of this typical Congress skullduggery has come in Uttarakhand where Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna’s son has got the Congress ticket to contest from the Pauri Lok Sabha seat, ignoring claims of senior notables. The result of such a machination is that Rahul is having a tough time answering questions to people in his own constituency.

But party insiders say that with the Congress rout in UP and his aborted mission to develop a dedicated youth cadre, Rahul is on the introspection trail. He has adopted a lower profile than ever before and is known to ask party workers to give their complaints in writing.

It is also said about Rahul that his ability to communicate with the common worker is not as effective as it should be. Intervening with words like 'let me tell you’ or ‘let me elaborate’ just did not go down well with the electorate in UP.

But Congress leaders insist that if the Congress scion elaborated on central assistance to the state governments, there was no harm in it, considering that other Congress leaders were not doing the same. In addition, they say, that UP is a caste laboratory where it is not too easy to unravel the winning combination. If it were, the Congress would not have been out of power in the state for so long.

Some indication of this has come in the Anthony Committee report on the UP poll debacle submitted to the party high command. According to it, about 122 A-plus assembly seats personally selected by Rahul Gandhi would have yielded good dividends if senior leaders had decided not to shoot their mouths off.

Rahul’s next litmus test is going to come in Gujarat, expected to go to polls by the end of 2012. Already the Rahul Gandhi vs Narendra Modi chorus is growing into a crescendo, with punters attaching the tag of a semi-final before the 2014 General Elections. Party insiders admit that Modi is nearly certain to return, albeit with a slimmer majority.

That leads to other problems. Party leaders fear in the eventuality of Modi coming back, knives will be out for the Congress leader sooner rather than later. In Gujarat too, the problem is the same as UP. Big party leaders have abdicated their responsibility and handed over the state to powerful opposition leaders on a platter.

The larger question is this: if the Congress fails yet again in Gujarat, could it mean a full stop to Rahul’s fledging political career? There are no clear answers. With the UPA poised to bring in legislations like the popular Food Security bill after the Gujarat elections, it is hoped that the tide will turn in its favour.

The Congress has also taken Mulayam Singh Yadav’s attempts at cobbling up a Third Front seriously. The top party leadership is loathe to lending outside support as they did in the forgettable decade of the 1990s when a slew of rank outsiders came to occupy the country’s top post with Congress’ outside support.

Nonetheless, the year-and-a-half left of Manmohan Singh’s rule is time enough for Rahul to consolidate the party’s base. There are indications that after a period of relative inactivity, Rahul is beginning to leave his imprint on the functioning of the government.

Handing over additional charge of the Railway Ministry to Rural Development Minister CP Joshi, the appointment of Nirmal Khatri as president of the UP Congress against stiff local opposition and the removal of Digvijay Singh as Congress UP observer in favour of Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, are all indictors that Rahul is beginning to flex his muscles again. There is also talk of a larger revamp in the party organisation.

Congress leaders claim the situation is not as bad as people believe. There is talk of an organisational shake up and many few faces could be thrown up from the states. "If the party works on the plans charted out by Sonia Gandhi, the results of the 2014 would come as a pleasant surprise to us,’’ says a leader. If that happens, the time for Rahul’s redemption could well have arrived.

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In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which account for 120 Lok Sabha seats, Narendra Modi might loom large in 2014. so the Muslim vote could, as always, decisively tilt the balance

The question has the ring of a national pastime: who will the Muslims go with in 2014? Before and after every major election in this country, political analysts and pollsters go into overdrive with their prognostications or post-mortems on the voting patterns of the minority community. But do Muslims really vote en masse as part of a tactical approach to keep forces inimical to their interests out of power?

Independent Rajya Sabha member Mohammad Adeeb says: “Muslims do resort to tactical voting. They do so out of compulsion. Hindus and Muslims were together in the freedom struggle but after Independence the minority community developed a sense of fear. They felt that their identity was in danger. So they voted for secular parties. Muslims have generally gone with the Congress. They are in futile search of another Gandhi.”

Khalid Ashraf, lecturer in Delhi's Kirori Mal College, echoes Adeeb: “Tactical voting by Muslims is a compulsion. The issue of security is top priority for them.” He laments that “communalism and casteism are ingrained in this country’s DNA”. He adds: “Only a small segment of the population is non-communal.

Otherwise it's only a matter of degrees. Some are very communal, others are less so. This is true of every community.”

Former Rajya Sabha member Shahid Siddiqui dismisses the theory regarding tactical voting by Muslims: “It is a myth. Muslims do not vote only for Muslim candidates either. They vote for anybody who they find suitable whereas that is not true with Gujjars, Brahmins or Yadavs. If anything, Muslims vote sensibly. They do not vote for one party or one community. They vote for the Muslim League in Kerala, the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in Andhra Pradesh, JD(U) in Bihar, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party or the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, the Left or Trinamool Congress in Bengal and the Congress in Karnataka.”

Siddiqui elaborates: “The Congress fielded the largest number of Muslim candidates in the last UP Assembly elections, but the community didn’t vote for them. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, however, Muslims had supported the Congress.” He adds: “The media treats Muslims as a herd. The impression is sought to be created that Muslim vote en masse. That is absolutely wrong. In the last UP Assembly elections, 60 per cent Muslims voted for SP while the rest voted for other political parties. By and large, the Muslim community votes like the Hindu community. Both vote differently in different states”.

Navaid Hamid, general secretary of the Movement for Empowerment of Muslim Indians, says: “Post-1986 elections, Muslims started exploring the strategy of tactical voting. The Shah Bano agitation and the hype of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement created serious reservations among Muslims regarding the Congress and obviously BJP. The new situation forced them to think about a new political alignment. The Bhagalpur riots, the Nellie massacre, and a sequence of communal riots led to disillusionment with the ruling Congress party. So wherever there was an alternative to the Congress Muslims voted for that alternative. But where there was no alternative, Muslims stayed with the Congress like in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.”

He believes that as of today, the Congress would get the Muslim vote because there is no third front. “Unfortunately, issues like corruption get a secondary place because security and discrimination come to the fore as they are directly linked to Muslims. The corruption issue gets sidelined also because the principal opposition party, BJP, is itself involved in large-scale corruption,” adds Hamid.

President of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Asaduddin Owaisi, MP, stresses the need for Muslims to develop their own political entity because even tactical voting has failed to serve its purpose. “In Assembly elections, regional considerations come into play. Wherever there is an alternative other than the Congress Muslims do vote for them. However, in states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi or Maharashtra there is no choice, so Muslims by default vote for Congress. It is time Muslims develop their own political space. We are not the sole torch-bearers of secularism.”

“It is a tragedy that a large section of the population does not accord importance to national issues like corruption and misgovernance and votes just to keep one political entity out of power. This approach can neither serve the interest of the nation nor of any particular community. People may call it tactical voting but for me it is insensitive voting,” says Rajesh Kumar, special correspondent of The Pioneer and resident of Bihar’s Sitabdiara (the birthplace of Jayaprakash Narayan).

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have significant Muslim populations. The two states account for 120 Lok Sabha seats. So how the Muslims vote in these two states does impact the final outcome of the general elections. Senior journalist Zafar Agha visualises three possible scenarios for UP in the 2014 elections.

Scenario 1: If the present phase of economic reforms works out, fetches results, money starts flowing, everything improves and no Assam-like riots erupt in the Congress-ruled states, then Muslims could go with the Congress.

Scenario 2: If Modi wins in Gujarat and BJP projects him as its prime ministerial candidate and the fight narrows down Rahul versus Modi, Muslims will go with the Congress. In this scenario, the decision of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar would also be a deciding factor.

Scenario 3: In case the decline of the Congress continues and BJP projects Modi as its candidate then Muslims may go with the regional parties. In that situation the chances of a third front emerging brightens as Muslims will do tactical voting to keep both the Congress and BJP out and facilitate the formation of a third front government with the outside support of either BJP or Congress.

Shahid Siddiqui says: “SP would be the biggest loser in western UP in the next Lok Sabha elections as the number of Yadavs is not significant in this area. Here, Muslims would vote for the main force at the Centre and Congress could gain. In eastern UP, however, all the key parties will have a chance. In 2014, Muslims would certainly not vote the way they did in the Assembly elections. The Lok Sabha election is a different kettle of fish.”

Predicting a poor show by the Congress, Mohd Adeeb says: “In 2009, Muslims voted for the Congress thinking that the party would carry forward the work of UPA-1. They believed that it would fulfil its promise of implementing the Sachar Committee recommendations. These recommendations have remained on paper for the last seven years. Though the Congress would suffer setbacks in the 2014 elections and regional parties would gain, the possibility of any third front coming to power is rather remote.”

In Bihar, too, Muslims appear to be losing faith in regional parties. They are beginning to look towards the Congress. Therefore, if the Congress goes in for a pre-poll alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) then the BJP-led NDA could face the music in the next parliamentary elections. Another factor that looms large over the minds of Bihari Muslims is the possibility of BJP projecting Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. Though the minority community appears to be happy with Nitish Kumar for now, the Modi factor could undermine the chief minister’s chances in 2014. Patna native Arif Siddiqui, who works in Delhi, says: “There has been overall development in the state, and the law and order situation has improved appreciably. So Muslims in Bihar will vote for Nitish.”

However, there are those that club Nitish and former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav together and allege that both are opportunists who have only exploited the community. The Bihar state president of the International Human Rights Security Council Arif Hussain says: “In the last 22 years, the ruling parties have sown the seeds of casteism among Muslims. Muslims are now sub-divided into several castes and this has been done by the regional parties. This factor could also tilt voters towards the Congress. What is the harm in projecting Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate? He has a clean and secular image”.

At present, JD(U) has 22 members in Parliament whereas BJP has 13 MPs from Bihar. If this alliance breaks then the present tally could change and Nitish's tally could go up. Muslims constitute 14 per cent of Bihar’s population. In 12 of the 40 LS seats in the state, the Muslim vote is decisive. These seats include Kishanganj, Araria, West Champaran, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Katihar, Bhagalpur, Gopalganj, Munger and Patna Sahib.

Social worker Ashfaq Husain says: “Lalu used to say he would not allow Praveen Togadia to enter the state. Nitish targets Modi in a similar manner. But Muslims here are leaning towards the Congress.” Hussain believes that Nitish will back BJP at the Centre no matter how the alliance fares in Bihar. Muslims are unlikely to ignore that eventuality when they go out to cast their vote in the 2014 general elections.