While the man with the political momentum, Narendra Modi, has apparently side-stepped on historical facts, the Congress is hurtling into an abyss. The only glimmer of hope for Congress is the man from Bihar, Nitish Kumar, to somehow puncture the Modi juggernaut. Belittling one historical icon to prop another is quite a poor electoral strategy, Modi will need to learn fast to keep the momentum going for him.
The Congress, after ruling for close to six decades, is facing the most grave crisis in its existence. The gloom within the Congress is expressed in hushed voices, as its leaders estimate winning 106 Lok Sabha seats, if polls were held as of today.
The Congress, after ruling for close to six decades, is facing the most grave crisis in its existence. The gloom within the Congress is expressed in hushed voices, as its leaders estimate winning 106 Lok Sabha seats, if polls were held as of today.
The Congress is making desperate attempts to avoid slipping into two digits. The gloom is more for the fact, that the worst performance came in 1999 when the Congress bagged just 112 seats. Then the grand old party wilted to the magic of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Now, the Congress is searching for clues and miracles to avert an existential crisis posed by BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The trend-spotters are leaning towards the BJP to give it four states -- Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Rajsthan and Delhi.
What has unnerved the Congress and its leaders is the fact that the party appears headed for most humiliating defeat in Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh. The sudden erosion of the popularity of Congress' most dependable leader Sheila Dikshit is giving rude shock. Dikshit's eroded popularity and party mascot Rahul Gandhi's disconnect with the people were evident in Mangolpuri where a mere 10,000 crowd came to listen to the future "Prime Minister". More shock was in the store when the crowd began disbursing even while Gandhi was in the middle of his speech. He read the signal and cut his speech half way.
Modi juggernaut is on the roll for past couple of months. That he has eclipsed even Vajpayee in popularity is no more a matter of debate, after more than 10 lakh crowd braved bombs to listen to him in Patna.
But the travesty of Indian democracy is that none appears in the sight to occupy the anti-Modi space. This should be a serious issue. The spin doctors of the Congress and speech writers for Rahul Gandhi have so far failed to rise to the occasion. The team Rahul has given full accounts that they are far removed from the ground realities.
From an angry man to the prophet of love, Rahul Gandhi has done a pendulum swing in the last one month. The end result has been hysterical derision from the mass. Lacking skills to connect with the mass and further bogged down for lack of oratory, Rahul Gandhi has been so far unimaginative in launching counter attack to Modi.
But the most serious challenge did come up from Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. Like Congress, he too is faced with an existential crisis in Bihar. The BJP threatens to tear apart his social engineering. Nitish's woes are further compounded with simmering dissent in JD (U) ranks for his alleged authoritarian style of functioning. The media too deserted him, after they found that all the good things Nitish did in his first term disappeared in the second term.
Still, Nitish could rise to the occasion and pose serious challenge to Modi and by all accounts he deserves to lead the anti-Modi political space. That his party is facing a massive anti-incumbency would surely clip his wings to play a major role at the national level.
Nonetheless, Nitish gave the glimpse of his ability to engage Modi in the public discourse. Modi is swaying with the momentum but is not at all immune to slippage. So, Modi forgot Magadh and substituted the golden era of ancient India with Bihar and side-stepped on historical facts.
Indeed, barring Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, politicians have been poor students of history. Modi too is not an exception. Of late, he is digging into history to sharpen his attacks on the Congress. This could be a challenge for him, as electorally history seldom helps in winning votes.
The sudden turn to give a spin to Nehru-Patel narrative may hardly pay any electoral dividend to Modi. Even if Nahru smoked cigarettes, flirted with Lady Mountbatten, erred on Kashmir and Hindi language, the generally accepted fact, shared by most Indians, is that he was the best man to be in the office in 1947.
Belittling one historical icon to prop up another is a bad political strategy, that Modi should know quickly. If he keeps playing this up, he may just end up offering the Congress a straw to swim back to the shore.
Coming back to the prospects of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the likely scenario could be the Congress propping up Nitish Kumar under whom the jumboree of more than a dozen parties may come together. The hint to this effect was on the display at Talkatora stadium during Left sponsored convention against communalism. The Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar could emerge as the power broker post-2014 elections.
But the front-in-the-air can have a chance only if they succeed to stop the BJP below 200 mark. This appears not much optimistic. Because, the Congress right now is confident of just one state -- Karnataka -- to win seats. Otherwise, it looks to win few seats here and there only.
The Left is headed for a rout in West Bengal. The JD (U) is praying for longer stay of Lalu
In contrast, the parties with momentum -- Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee, BJD of Navin Patnaik and AIADMK of J Jayalalitha -- have all done business with the BJP in the past and their secular commitments are hardly cast in the stone. That leaves the front-in-the-air, which can witness fratricidal war for leadership the day a platform is formed, with diminished strength to repeat the V P Singh experiment of 1989.
But politics is most often brutal to those who rule out any possibilities and, hence, a British Parliamentarian, most likely Winston Churchil, said that "a week is too long a time in politics". And the sharpest of the polarization does take place in the last three months running into the elections. So, the last word is not yet spoken on 2014 elections.
