2023: Will Rahul’s long march convince non-BJP opposition of Congress’s central role?

By N Muraleedharan

Twitter: @the_news_21

Thiruvananthapuram: Will the Congress party be able to convince the non-BJP opposition of its central role in national politics in 2023? This is the key question awaiting an answer as Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) is about to set off on its second leg after the new year interlude.

Before it halted in New Delhi on the eve of Christmas, BJY has covered a vast distance cutting through the south, west, and central Indian states. It also touched Haryana before hitting the national capital with the sound and fury it generated reaching a feverish pitch.

Congress leaders have painstakingly scoffed at the tendency to look at the long march essentially in the electoral calculus. They have consistently held that this is a campaign that seeks to reunite the people and restore the nation’s ethos, ‘torn asunder’ by the BJP rule since 2014. But this narrative has failed to muster strength as it is amply clear that BJY is an attempt by the grand old party to regain its lost ground, with Rahul Gandhi as the pivot.

True, the yatra on its way had been joined briefly by some non-political personalities who had voiced deep concern over the nation’s ’drift’ under the Narendra Modi regime. But such cameo acts have not been able to cover up Yatra’s political intentions.

Since the yatra entered the last lap of its first leg, the mainstream media, especially the print, had quite a few absorbing analyses of what it has achieved, and what more it could achieve. Some of them went to the extent of attributing the yatra the dimensions of a national movement, akin to the storied campaigns spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom struggle, to awaken the slumbering nation.

A few others have tended to see things in a more mundane fashion, posing the question if the yatra will help reconfigure the Congress and make it the vanguard in the fight against the BJP. Though it is riveting to read the pieces elevating the yatra to lofty heights, the second perspective is far more realistic and directly connected to the prevailing context.

The year ahead is going to be crucial for the BJP, the Congress, and an assortment of regional parties across diverse political geographies. As many as nine assembly elections are stacked during the year. As cliché goes, these together are going to be a dress rehearsal for the 2024 parliament polls.

The states going to the polls this year include Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Karnataka, where the electoral battles are to be fought between the BJP and the Congress. Then there are states like Telangana and Andhra Pradesh dominated by well-entrenched regional parties. This would mean that the Congress has to triumph over the BJP in the first set of states to emerge as a credible national pole to attract the non-BJP regional parties to build a broad political axis during or after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. With the organization still in tatters and the regional outfits far from convinced of its national stature, it is going to be a tall order for the GOP.

Though leaders of some of the non-BJP regional outfits come out and pledge solidarity with Rahul Gandhi when his yatra passed through their states, they had refrained from giving any clear indication that they are looking at Congress as the frontline force in future battles. The Aam Admi Party (AAP), as an outlier, has refused to even recognize the Congress as a force to reckon with in the national scheme of things, seeing the BJP as its principal adversary.

Take a look at the ground situation. There are big states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, and Punjab where regional parties are in power and continue to hold sway. Except for Odisha and Andhra Pradesh the ruling parties in these states are stiffly opposed to the BJP. This does not mean that Congress has many gains from them.

An assortment of regional outfits dominates the northeastern states, though they are not averse to breaking bread with anyone if the situation warrants that.

All this would boil down that the Congress has to significantly improve its performance in the states where it is locked in a straight contest with the BJP. Only if it has a substantial number of seats in its kitty will the regional parties accept the Congress as the leader of a prospective post-poll non-BJP alliance at the Centre. Given the prevailing trends, it would be a herculean task for Congress to overcome the grim challenge posed by the BJP.

Also Read: Tharoor opens a new front in Congress in Kerala, leaves many leaders fretting and fuming

The saffron party has to its advantage the organisational might and immense resources at its command, which it would be calibrated to score an electoral hat-trick under Narendra Modi. Unless a political and economic upheaval disrupts the nation in 2023, windfalls are not going to come the way of the GOP.