RAJ DALUJA
JAMMU: Trinamool Congress has fired yet another salvo at the fourth generation Nehru-Gandhi scions. After showing place to Rahul Gandhi by proposing the name of Malikarjun Kharge as the prime ministerial face of the newly formed amalgam against Narendra Modi in 2024 general elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has suggested Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contesting the elections from Varanasi against NaMo. This has rattled the Congress, say all powerful Sonia Gandhi. She can see through the mischief in the proposal. She understands what it means fielding her daughter against the Prime Minister. This time around, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal preferred not to be in league with his West Bengal counterpart, as he is yet to come to terms for having lost by a margin of over 3.7 lakh votes against Narendra Modi in 2019 general elections from the prestigious Varanasi Lok Sabha Constituency. In this backdrop, the Congress testing turf for a ‘senior leader’ in Yogi Adhityanath’s Uttar Pradesh will be disastrous, as it suffered the worst ever debacle in this state in 2019.
Is it Mamata Banerjee’s love lost for Gandhi scions or a ploy to free the Congress from the ‘shackles’ of the family? She has herself remained a proactive member of the Congress, besides a functionary and a minister, between 1976 and 1980. This is true about the various other top INDI Alliance leaders, essentially former Congressmen, but they are maintaining low profile on this count as of now. Mamata Banerjee appears to have taken a lead, and taken off the lid, in ensuring the Congress Mukt Gandhis-the decimation of the prospectus of Rahul Gandhi’s candidature as Prime Minister two days earlier being the first step towards this ‘mission’.
One after another, major affiliates of the INDI Alliance are inflicting political bruises on the Congress, especially the Gandhis. This cannot be just by the way-there seems to be a method in madness. Former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s spat with senior Congress leaders during recently conducted assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh is still fresh in the minds of INDI Alliance allies. Sharad Pawar and Nitesh Kumar are sulking over the treatment meted out to them in the recent past.
While Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal and other INDI leaders are calling the shots against each other, the BJP is on mission mode to realize the dream of Narendra Modi with regard to the Congress Mukt Bharat. The slogan coined by Modi in 2014 caught the imagination of electors in a big way. Consequently, the Congress performed very badly in 2014 parliamentary elections, resulting in the biggest ever crisis in the grand old party. The alleged involvement of Gandhis in the National Herald and Augusta cases besides scams under the UPA regime facilitated the BJP to train guns against the Congress. In later years, the BJP also succeeded in denting the image and the credibility of Rahul Gandhi. He is more seen as a ‘comic figure’ than a serious politician and contender to carry forward the Nehru-Gandhi legacy. Decimation of the Congress, if not now but in near future, will mean defeat of an ideology and a philosophy that remained ingrained in India’s political spectrum for seven decades.
It will be interesting to watch how things pan out in the next few months for the INDI Alliance, the Congress and the Gandhis. Future holds big surprises for all the three.
