Paradoxically, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra ended the same day as the Election Commission announced the Lok Sabha polls for 2024, though the Yatra’s final rally is to take place in Mumbai on Sunday at the historic Shivaji Park.
It will now get converted into the first election meeting by the Opposition INDIA bloc in Maharashtra, which has acquired an importance all its own for both sides.
Through his two Yatras, over the last two years, first from South to North and more recently from East to West, Rahul has gained a national profile. Position or no position, he is today recognised as THE leader of the Congress who is taking decisions for the party, no matter who is in-charge officially.
He has also become a symbol for all those dissatisfied with the Narendra Modi rule. And the first choice of the minorities —wherever the Congress is in a position to get its act together.
Last Friday, at the Muslim-dominated powerloom city of Bhiwandi in Thane district, a crowd of 7,000-10,000 of mainly Muslims waited for him to arrive from Palghar for the last lap of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, even though it was time to break their Ramzan roza. Speaker after speaker from the community urged those present to work to make Rahul the prime minister. As they milled round the Anant Dighe Chowk, they nostalgically recalled the Congress rule and the “mohabbat (harmony)” of earlier years!
The curiosity about Rahul has also increased in the last two years; people want to know more about him. At Bhiwandi, I found a large group of Hindu women who had come with their children. “We wanted to see for ourselves what he is like”, “We had heard about him”. Would they be voting for him? “We will vote for whoever works for us.”
Rahul has also emerged as the sharpest critic of Modi today. He did not mince his words two days ago while criticising the PM, calling the now-scrapped electoral bonds scheme the biggest “extortion” undertaken at the behest of Modi.
Over the last two years, Rahul has become more confident in the way he handles questions from the media; on electoral bonds, he remained determinedly focused on his subject, not letting the media deflect him by raising issues around the Congress’s culpability in other matters. (Still, he continues to berate the media at every opportunity he gets!)
Congress workers also noted that between the two Yatras, Rahul did not disappear abroad as frequently as he used to earlier.
By design or default, in the way the situation has developed, and without being officially projected as the alternative to Modi either by his own party or by the Opposition alliance, it is Rahul who is seen as the counter to Modi in the battle that now lies ahead for the Delhi grief.
Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra-1 was a novel, innovative idea. People responded positively to a politician, and that too the “Prince-like” scion of the Nehru Gandhi family, walking 4,000 km to come to them and listen to them. He stayed the course and the whole exercise helped him shed his non-serious, so-called “Pappu” image.
Though Rahul continued with the faux pas he is known for, such as a negative reference to V D Savarkar in Maharashtra, a state where he is a respected figure, during his first Yatra. This time, there was much heartburn within the Congress over his contemptuous reference to those who attended the Ayodhya Ram Temple consecration, saying it only had “people like Ambani, Adani” or a “dancing” Aishwarya Rai.
The second Yatra, particularly its timing, was also mystifying. Elections were around the corner, seat-sharing had to be finetuned with coalition partners; new challenges faced the INDIA bloc, with Mamata Banerjee pulling out, as did the Jayant Choudhary-led RLD. And a Yatra on wheels was like so many other such endeavours, with politicians undertaking tours all the time, interspersed with small group meetings.
Still, as during his first Yatra, Rahul drew large crowds in some places, such as in Nashik earlier this week where, as per a Congress leader, “Bhayankar response tha (There was huge response)”. The Communists have had a base in the region, and ally Shiv Sena also put its best foot forward.
But, at the end of the day, the Yatras have done little to rebuild a dying Congress organisation. There could have been follow-up camps across the country, along the routes Rahul followed, tapping into the enthusiasm and new energies generated by his Yatra to create a support base for his party. Even when people talk of the good response Rahul drew in some places, they express in the next breath what worries most Congress karyakartas, “But we don’t know if this will convert into votes!”
An organisation is a necessary prerequisite for garnering votes. And ultimately, a political party is all about power and winning elections – before it can get on to “serving the people”, or “changing policy” or “protecting democracy”.
It was towards the end of his Yatra-2, particularly after he entered Maharashtra, a state which is going to decide fortunes in the coming elections, that Rahul struck a poll pitch, and announced ‘Nyay’ / guarantees for farmers, youth and women like agenda points for his party’s manifesto. He also shared the stage with NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut in Nashik, giving it the flavour of the INDIA bloc fighting the polls together.
Rahul’s Yatra-2, many feel, could have been more of the above – about the INDIA alliance, and less about himself, signalling, as nothing else could have done, the coalition getting ready for the 2024 polls, moving in step from state to state. But the allies were not consulted, and they were made part of the journey only at the last moment, as in UP and later in Maharashtra. It was an opportunity lost.
“India is at a point today, not unlike the situation it faced in 1947”, said an entrepreneur in Pune“to be or not to be inclusive.” Rahul raised the right issues, the entrepreneur added, “par woh unki pakad mein nahin aa rahe hain (but he is not able to convey the same to connect with the people)”.
This was also true of issues such as “berozgari (unemployment)” – a reality for so many. Selling cucumbers from a cart at a chowk in Thane, Vikas Kumar said he had come all the way to Mumbai from Poorvi Champaran in search of work. “I have to pay Rs 4,000 per month to the policeman, eke out a living and send money to my ailing mother back home,” says the 20-year-old OBC youth.
Rahul’s posters around him, Vikas says he has heard about the Yatra. But the ideas espoused by Rahul, including caste census, language that suggests the Congress leader sees himself in the role of Mandal Messiah-2 – his constant refrain that “90% of India (OBCs, SCs, STs, minorities) does not figure among the top positions in the country’s bureaucracy, judiciary, or the media” – do not resonate with Vikas.
But now the die has been cast. Rahul’s opponent is no ordinary foe – pitching as Modi is for 370 seats this time. There will now be no time for anything but hard bargaining across the table for seats, and the heat and dust of a long, gruelling campaign spread over seven phases.
It is once again over to the people of India.
(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Expresshas covered the last 10 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide)
