There were two distinct messages from last month’s assembly elections in Bihar.
The first centred on the remarkable ability of the Bharatiya Janata Party and, by implication, the National Democratic Alliance to overcome the reverses it suffered in the parliamentary election of 2024. There will inevitably be disagreements over what triggered the recovery: astute election management or economic populism. But what is sufficiently clear is that with a string of election victories, the BJP has been able to put an end to the speculation that the losses it suffered in the Lok Sabha poll were a pointer to a larger decline and the beginning of the end of the Narendra Modi era. Today, the political consensus is that the BJP has regained the initiative necessary for the prime minister to embark on major policy changes. The BJP also appears to have acquired the necessary self-confidence to resume its ambitious project to redraw the ideological underpinnings of Indian nationhood. The outcome of the next round of assembly elections, particularly in West Bengal and Assam, will determine whether the exercise is speeded up or will proceed at a cautious pace.
Secondly, the past 18 months since the Lok Sabha election have been correspondingly dispiriting for the Opposition. It should be recalled that the Congress interpreted its success in winning 99 seats as a stupendous victory and evidence that it was on the cusp of a dramatic political recovery. With the INDIA combine trailing the NDA by a mere 1.9% of the popular vote, the earlier scepticism over the leadership of Rahul Gandhi was largely dispelled. The Congress expected to capitalise on the momentum of 2024 to regain control of Haryana, a state where the performance of the two-term BJP government had been lacklustre. It also hoped to repeat its Lok Sabha success in the Maharashtra assembly poll and cement the unlikely alliance with the Thackeray family-led Shiv Sena. Finally, since the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led Mahagathbandhan had come within a whisker of success in the 2020 Bihar assembly election, the reconquest of Patna seemed certain.
None of these calculations passed the test of reality. Haryana was a surprising defeat, but the scale of the debacles in Maharashtra and Bihar was quite staggering and even unexpected. There was a small consolation prize in Jharkhand where the Congress was a junior partner of the Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. Unfortunately for the party, there were no sweeteners in Delhi where it drew a blank. In the national capital that the party under the redoubtable Sheila Dikshit had governed uninterruptedly from 1998 to 2013, the Congress was relegated, once again, to a poor third position.
Following the astonishingly poor performance in Bihar, a wave of demoralisation has gripped the Congress. Although the party stands a very good chance of ousting the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led alliance in Kerala and benefiting from its alliance with Chief Minister M.K. Stalin in Tamil Nadu, pundits have already begun asking two questions.
First, why has the Congress not succeeded in recovering ground in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal? In all these states, the anti-BJP space has been successfully captured by regional parties. In UP, the fortunes of the BJP rose dramatically in 1991 and then declined equally sharply in 1999. However, while the saffron party was able to regain its clout after 2014, the Congress decline seems to be more enduring. This is equally true of Odisha where the post-2009 Opposition space was hogged by the BJP, relegating the Congress to third place. It is worth noting that there was a Congress government in Bhubaneshwar until as late as 1999. A newcomer to politics such as Naveen Patnaik was able to regroup the political network of his late father, Biju Patnaik, in just two years between 1997 and 1999. Why has this proved impossible for the Congress in state after state?
Secondly, despite acquiring a new fan club of Left-inclined activists ranging from the Aam Aadmi Party refugee, Yogendra Yadav, to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) general-secretary, Dipankar Bhattacharya, the impression in traditional Congress circles is that Rahul Gandhi is not fit for the purpose. Arguably, this is a subjective perception that is disproportionately dependent on election outcomes. Rahul became a flavour of the season after his Bharat Jodo Yatra led to a minor Congress recovery in 2024. However, his ratings in the political circuit have dipped following the underwhelming response to his anti-Election Commission crusade. What concerns the shrinking band of loyal Congress networks is that the leader of the Opposition is fanatically single-minded about his latest pet themes that range from Rafale and Adani to vote-chori. Like his disastrous TV interview in 2014 where he seemed stuck with scripted assertions on women’s empowerment, Rahul seems to move from correctness to correctness, unmindful that in a country as diverse as India, a one-size-fits-all approach has its limitations. When was the last time Rahul made a considered intervention on concrete issues of governance, as opposed to holding forth on general themes such as democracy and the sanctity of the Constitution?
Ever since he assumed charge of what some call his ‘family business’, Rahul has been berated for his sense of entitlement. This may seem unfounded to those who see him as a well-behaved gentleman, perhaps overdoing the casualness of attire but certainly not lacking in civility. The problem doesn’t lie in his distinctive personal style or even in his very un-Indian inclination for large doses of me-time; the arrogance comes through in his political approach that seems out of tune with contemporary realities.
In leading the Opposition charge against the prime minister, what is unmistakable is Rahul’s baggage of visceral hatred. The Gandhi dynast doesn’t merely oppose Modi and the BJP, he loathes both with passionate intensity. In this, he mirrors the attitude of the small social circle around him and his sister. Comprising mainly of Congress inheritors, invariably those with a westernised orientation and American education, they feed on each other’s bitterness at the sustained loss of power, privilege and patronage. To this can be added the Nehru family’s long-standing disdain and contempt for the social and the cultural assumptions of Hindu nationalism. All these angularities make it difficult for the Gandhis to relate to an assertive New India, impatient with the entitlements of the babalogs in political exile.
Under Modi’s BJP, India has changed — sometimes unrecognisably. The Old Elite — call them the ‘Khan Market gang’ or even Macaulay’s orphans — have yielded way to newer social groups at the top. By making his opposition seem blind and uncompromising, Rahul has disengaged from the larger Congress family that sees the BJP as an opponent, and not a sinister, dark force. This lack of moderation could prove to be his undoing.