As Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi walked into the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in New Delhi to be interrogated in a money laundering case allegedly connected to the National Herald newspaper, party-men including Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel, and former Union finance minister P Chidambaram, staged a protest in the country’s capital. Both the interrogation and its resultant protests continued for three days.
Perhaps it’s high time that the Congress realises its prime responsibility as a grand old national party to reactivate the UPA and unite the Opposition despite traditional rivalries. (ANI)
This is perhaps the first time in recent years that the Congress displayed its political might despite its shrinking electoral base in the country. It couldn’t have remained a silent spectator when the leaders stood in the dock in what they believed to be an act of political vendetta. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dismissed it as a support for corruption. The protest on streets , however, left the public dismayed, with many wondering where the grand old party has been these past years to rally against rising religious divisiveness, unemployment, and inflation.
Uttar Pradesh (UP) is perhaps the only state to have an emotional connection with both the National Herald as well as the Congress leadership. The country's first Prime Minister (PM) Jawaharlal Nehru started the newspaper in 1938 in Delhi and Lucknow. People still recall Nehru's frequent visits to the newspaper's office in Kaiserbagh before he became PM.
From Nehru to Rahul Gandhi, the Gandhi family has been elected to the Lok Sabha from UP — primarily from the Phulpur, RaeBareli, and Amethi constituencies. Unfortunately, even RaeBareli and Amethi remained unaffected when Rahul went through a 30-hour-long questioning spread over three days.
The chinks in the Opposition camp were also exposed.
No one bats an eyelid
On the third day of interrogation, when the Congress was thronging the streets accusing the police of high-handedness, 17 small and big Opposition parties were meeting in Delhi, primarily to discuss their strategy for the presidential polls. However, even on the sidelines, they did not condemn the investigation against the Congress leader.
The initiator of the Opposition meet, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee, however, did mention the “bulldozing of democracy”, which the Opposition parties may discuss again in their next meeting. Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav broke his silence while responding to queries by the media. While criticising the government for using central agencies against Opposition leaders, Akhilesh described the ED as "Examination in Democracy", but was short of condemning Rahul's interrogation.
The Congress shares power with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. It contested the 2020 assembly polls in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar and allied with the SP in UP for the 2017 assembly polls. The Congress shares fairly good relations with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, but there is no love lost between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Akali Dal of Punjab, and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) of Telangana, and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
To date, hardly any support has come for the Gandhi family, even from friendly quarters.
NCP's Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena's Uddhav Thackeray, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav of the SP and RJD in UP and Bihar, and DMK leaders have all steered clear of joining the Congress chorus describing the quizzing of Rahul Gandhi by the ED as a witch-hunt.
In 2020, when Congress garnered support
Recalling the support that both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra received from all political quarters after they were arrested by UP police while marching towards Hathras in Uttar Pradesh in October 2020, political analysts said the support will pour in on issues that haunt public consciousness.
This was the case in which the Congress launched a campaign on Twitter with the hashtag, #JusticeForIndianDaughters, to bring awareness and justice to the 19-year-old Dalit woman who was the victim of the gangrape and murder on September 14, 2020, by upper-caste neighbours and the subsequent forcible cremation of her body by the authorities without the consent of the family. This saw support from various quarters including NCP’s Sharad Pawar, former prime minister HD Deve Gowda (Karnataka) and DMK Member of Parliament (MP) Kanimozhi, who condemned the treatment meted out to the young scions of the Gandhi family. At the time, Deve Gowda said, “UP government should treat Congress senior leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi [Vadra] and others with great care and caution. They are fighting for a just cause.”
Today, support from these leaders was nowhere to be seen.
A rocky alliance
Banerjee, who took the initiative to rally together Opposition parties against the BJP on June 15, has been singularly fighting her political battles against the main opponent of the Centre since she formed the TMC government for the third time in May 2021.
But in this regard, individual egos remain stronger in the Opposition camp. The TRS and Akali Dal did not join the meet as the Congress was likely to participate. The Left parties raised a technical procedural alibi to reject the invite and the AAP declined the invite on the plea that Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was not in town. Odisha and Andhra Pradesh chief ministers Naveen Patnaik and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy were missing, too.
Mamata Banerjee could have followed procedure, an issue raised by the leaders of the Left parties, instead of taking a unilateral call. And, the fragmented Opposition, who has been crying hoarse over “vindictive actions” by the Narendra Modi-led government against political opponents, could have also used the opportunity to present a united secular front.
Can a UPA revival work?
But then the Congress, too, has to share much of the blame. Had the party stood steadfastly with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), formed before the 2004 parliamentary elections, alive even after they were voted out of power, the scenario would have been different for the Opposition today, which stands sharply divided and confined to regional pockets. After all, the UPA had remained active for a full decade — from 2004 to 2014 — under the leadership of its chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
But as the Congress, which spearheaded the UPA, diminished in strength and popularity across the country, the revival of the UPA seemed far out of reach. In December 2021, Banerjee dismissively said, “What UPA? It is over”, but others like the Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut pinned hopes on its revival after meeting Rahul Gandhi in December 2021. He suggested the Congress leader take the initiative of bringing all Opposition parties together, insisting that there were still many parties who could join the UPA.
Experts often say the country’s politics will revolve around two pivots: The Congress and the BJP. Though firmly ensconced in power, the BJP is not only penetrating different regions, but also humouring allies, irrespective of their limited presence in certain states. One example that stands out is the Apna Dal, which started its politics with a 1% support base. Union home minister Amit Shah, while holding parleys with the party’s leadership ahead of the recently concluded 2022 UP assembly polls, not only personally met them, but also offered them a Cabinet berth.
Perhaps it’s high time that the Congress realises its prime responsibility as a grand old national party to reactivate the UPA and unite the Opposition despite traditional rivalries. But whether it must have the will and grit to do so remains to be seen.
Flashback, flash forward
I remember several years ago, when the Mayawati-led government in UP had slapped FIRs against arch-rival and SP satrap, Mulayam Singh Yadav, in different parts of the state, several parties had, in one voice, condemned the action in Parliament. A visibly touched Mulayam Singh Yadav had then quipped in a personal chat, “In the initial days of my politics, I could make a few friends as I always flexed muscles and crossed swords with people. But now I have friends in every political party and this was reflected in the manner in which they all raised the FIR issue on the floor of the House.”
As experts say, people continue to have huge expectations from the Congress even as a robust BJP-led National Democratic Alliance dominates the political landscape. There remains, even today, an ideological space for the Congress-led UPA, provided they raise public issues with the same energy as they did when their leadership was summoned by the ED. Or else, the NDA will grow stronger while the UPA will totter and then disintegrate completely.
From her perch in Lucknow, HT’s resident editor Sunita Aron highlights important issues related to Uttar Pradesh
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