By Kumkum Chadha
“Abuses were hurled on my mother from an RJD-Congress platform in Bihar. These abuses are not just an insult to my mother…this is an insult to the mothers, sisters and daughters of the country… I can see the faces of mothers and sisters here. I can see the tears of some women,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Quite expectedly, the cameras pan to a handful of women actually wiping their tears.
For a party which has used terms like “jersey cow” to “Congress ki vidhwa (widow), for Sonia Gandhi to “50 crore ki girlfriend” for parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor’s wife and routinely derides women, the criticism is misplaced. But that apart, the issue here is why did the prime minister bring this up, invoking his mother, and in the process, whipping up sentiment.
That Modi is a master of rhetoric is a given. But never before has he brought his mother centre stage or used her politically, particularly for electoral politics. This, perhaps, is a first.
But why? A straight answer is difficult to find: the obvious, however, being that the bell tolls, with the Bihar elections looming large. Even while opinion polls indicate the NDA to be in a comfortable position, as of now, the Mahagathbandan, comprising Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and Left parties, too, may not do badly. Yet these are early days and the tables may turn anytime. It is in this context that one may assess the impact of Rahul Gandhi’s 1300-km march across 20 districts in Bihar. A kind of an eternal yatri, this is not Gandhi’s first.
Gandhi’s yatra politics, if one may use the term though guardedly, started in 2022: the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir as it were. The journey that covered nearly 4,000 km, spanning 12 states and two union territories began in September and ended on January 30, 2023. It was a bid to connect with the Indian masses and occupy center stage and “to be relevant” politically. It can easily be termed as a “mass movement” and an attempt to “understand the pain of the young people”.
Gandhi had then said: “I start at 6 am and walk 25 kms”. There were many who had then walked with him to support his Unite India campaign, as it were. Mocked by critics and opponents, the walk did transform Gandhi’s image from pappu, an imbecile, to a politician who had matured with time. His “nafrat ke bazaar mein mohabbat ki dukaan kholne aaya hoon” (opening shops of love in a market of hate) narrative resonated with the people gripped by a communal divide.
His second, the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, commenced some two years later. It started from Manipur and ended in Mumbai. In his three month yatra, Gandhi covered some 15 states. He added one word to the original Bharat Jodo Yatra: nyaya (justice) to hammer agrarian distress, unemployment, corruption, and inequality.
The third yatra Voter Adhikar Yatra, focussed on the people’s fundamental right to vote. Gandhi flagged the vote chori theme, alleged theft of votes by the ruling party in collusion with the Election Commission of India. The Opposition has claimed that because of the Special Intensive Review (SIR) in Bihar, millions were disenfranchised; electoral rolls had names of living people marked as dead, and so on and so forth.
Technicalities and numbers apart, what has worked is the vote chori rhetoric. And this is less about Gandhi or the Yatra, but more about the issue: it is about the powerless and the marginalized being shortchanged by those in power. It is this people-connect that has worked and worked well. Add to this, the slogan, “Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhor” (vote thief, relinquish the throne). “I want to tell the youth of Bihar that vote theft means theft of rights, theft of employment, theft of education, theft of democracy, and theft of the future of the youth. They will take away with your land and ration and give it to Ambani and Adani,” Gandhi told a cheering crowd in Patna earlier this month. If reports are anything to go by, the twin themes of vote theft and Adani-Ambani is a pitch that has found resonance with the electorate in Bihar.
Then there is a caste twist to the issue: the Opposition is alleging that deletions in the voter lists are designed to undermine the strength of Yadavs, Muslims, Dalits and the backward classes. For the record, these castes form the support base of the RJD, Left and the Congress parties. Rewind to 2024 when the INDIA block had used caste and said that the BJP, if it gets power, will “tear apart and “throw away” the Constitution which granted rights to the Dalits and the backwards, among others.
Equally, vote chori is a potent weapon, and if used judiciously, can damage the prospects of the ruling party. Quite like the “Save the Constitution” had in 2024. Gandhi had then travelled with a pocket edition of the Constitution across the country, waving a copy at the election rallies that he had then addressed. In the results that followed, BJP lost the majority while the INDIA alliance did unexpectedly well: it bagged 234 seats against BJP’s 240.
Whether the vote chori campaign will pay electoral dividends to the Opposition remains to be seen. As for now that is uncertain. What is not is that the BJP is rattled.
Consequently, it has stepped up its attack. If a Union minister has said that Congress is walking the path of the evil king Kans of the Mahabharata, a BJP MP has alleged that Gandhi’s narrative is based on lies. Add to this Prime Minister Modi evoking sympathy in the name of his mother.
Irrespective, there are a few takeaways from what can be termed as a “Rahul yatra”: a display of Opposition unity reminiscent of 2024 elections, renewed energy on the ground, revival of the Congress rank and file, and more importantly, Gandhi emerging as a major challenger to the BJP and its governance model.
For optics, large cut-outs, the flower showers, men and women coming out in large numbers, farmers expecting a political change and visibility and reemergence of the grand old party that lost ground some 35 years ago in the state is there for all to see.
On these counts, the Rahul yatra can be counted as a success though the real test would be after the results of the yet-to-be announced Bihar elections. Crowds, as several elections in India, have demonstrated, do not necessarily translate into votes.
—The writer is an author, journalist and political commentator