The Congress on Bihar, caught napping? Is the Congress being equally short-sighted, or is it merely covering all its flanks in the creation of this new caste grouping, throwing an L (Lingayat) into the Ahinda mix in a Karnataka, that is clearly on the Amit Shah-Narendra Modi radar, and is indisputably, the next target for a toppling game by the masterly BJP before polls next year.
The BJP, with its every cut, thrust and feint, has been looking for the weak spot, but apart from removing stalwart S.M.Krishna, the party’s Gowda face from the Congress pantheon thus far, has been unable to plunge the knife in, over either the flag or the language or for that matter, LAhinda.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, one slippery step ahead of B.S. Yeddyurappa? Or is this is a crisis, messier than Bihar, that is yet to come to fruition, implode?
In Gujarat where the BJP’s Public Enemy Number One is Ahmed Patel, the Congress’ answer to Amit Shah, and the target of every dirty trick in the book, a sulking Shankarsingh Vaghela, in cahoots with his old mates from the BJP, has done a Nitish, albeit on a smaller scale. But if the Congress czar were to lose his re-election bid for the Rajya Sabha seat, and the party sees the last of its savvy old guard in the upper house, the BJP will have locked Gujarat in. One more victory notched up the BJP. Not even the ‘savviest’ Congressman saw a Goa, an Assam, Meghalaya, or Bihar coming.
The kinder explanation for the Congress befuddlement is that the party’s vice president is caught between empowering the younger apparatchiks and ending the run of the old guard who have lost their sure touch. The harsher verdict? Mr Rahul Gandhi doesn’t have the political chops to move fast enough.
In choosing to let Vaghela dangle from a string for months, without giving him the assurance that he would lead the charge against the BJP, he virtually shoved Vaghela into the arms of the all too willing BJP. Sounds familiar? However dubious Vaghela’s loyalties are and suspicions, he could switch sides after the elections, a face to face meet, a cementing of bonds, was the need of the hour. Not the royal ignore!
As for flying out and sequestering Congress legislators in Bengaluru after six legislators crossed over to the BJP leaving the Congress short of the five votes they need, the question is this - why bother with this gambit, when you’ve already lost the game.
The Congress in Gujarat, much like Bihar is like a deer caught in the headlights unlike the BJP and its singularly clever sleight of hand, in winning back Bihar - without spending a single rupee or holding an election - less than two years after Sushil Modi limped through with a mere 50 odd seats; Notwithstanding, using Narendra Modi, as the poster boy.
How could the mandarins in the Congress not see Bihar coming? Did they not pick up the signals? Nitish, the Unhappy. Were they completely out of step, unable to gauge the deep discomfort that Nitish Kumar had with a Lalu Prasad Yadav, who over the last 22 months did nothing but promote his son in a bid to perpetuate the old style of politics that he thrived on? Lalu was steadily replacing all bureaucrats, ambivalent to him with pro-Yadav officers in a bid to grow the unexpected bonanza of 80 seats to an unstoppable 122 in the next polls. Except by 2019, Nitish knew that his own reputation for good governance would be reduced to a travesty. He wasn’t having that!
Rahul Gandhi had the opportunity and the means to fix the slide. Surely, Sushil Modi could not have had access to the all too real dirt on the Lalu clan without some help from Bihar’s chief minister. And the dirty little secrets on the Lalu clan didn’t come out in a day, they were an ongoing story for months. Why didn’t Rahul act, ask angry Congress leaders from Bihar. Why didn’t he shunt the unacceptable Tejashwi aside and bring in a cleaner RJD face. Anybody but Tejashwi. Especially, if as he himself admits, he knew what Nitish was up to four months ago! What was he waiting for?
As the drama played out on our television screens alongside the sham debate over communalism versus secularism – Nitish was in bed with the BJP for 13 years and the Congress and RJD thought nothing of allying with him in 2014 - people forget that India’s biggest industry isn’t IT-BT or steel or automobiles. It’s the Industry of Politics; the politics of power, and patronage and patrimony. And it’s rattling around in our backyard, where the BJP is watching and waiting as the Congress under Chief Minister Siddaramaiah tries to lock in the caste vote by offering to give the Veerashaiva-Lingayat community an exalted religion status. Is that even within the ambit of the Constitution?
The CM’s formula is simple – the Congress is confident thus far that it has the OBC-Dalit-SC-ST vote in the bag, and drawing out the Veerashaivas by cutting into and rattling the BJP’s Lingayat rock solid base is the way forward. Perhaps. But does it have the undivided support of its own Lingayat leaders like the much respected Shamanur Shivashankarappa who is head of the All India Veerashaiva committee and is reported to have put his foot down over his son Mallikarjun touring the state, as part of a campaign to win Lingayat sentiment for the CM’s move. So far, the CM has one votary among the five Lingayats in his stable. One!
Siddaramaiah may well believe he is sowing chaos and confusion in the BJP ranks, but the Congress’ own pronounced leanings away from the Lingayats is too well documented for a dramatic, overnight shift. The danger that other smaller caste configurations will emerge from this Pandora’s box, demanding their pound of flesh in return for political backing, is ever present. How will he meet these many demands?
Especially as the BJP dusts off an OBC commission this week, on the lines of an SC-ST body that will give the OBCs all the benefits they have been denied for the last 60 years. The BJP is going for the Congress’ jugular, its hitherto fail-safe vote bank, riding on the back of their newest scalp, Nitish, the OBC icon, even as the Congress dilly-dallied over offering Nitish, the big prize – leader of a rainbow opposition against the BJP.
The Congress. The perennial deer caught in the headlights.
