Has Nehru Gandhi scion opened the pandoras’ box ?

Has Rahul opened the Pandora’s Box?

As the general elections of 2019 are nearing the manipulations and maneuverings to capture the large chunks of votes on religious or communal lines by the two national political parties viz the Congress and BJP has come to the fore with their key leaders leaving no stone unturned to polarise the society in their own respective ways.

The media too is trying to hype this crucial issue to give further weightage to such trivial and complex issue beyond limits to enhance its TRP thus helping in a way to divide the society.

All of us know very specifically that the Congress party has been banking on the vote bank of the minorities, the dalits and backwards for the last several decades right from the era of late Mrs Indira Gandhi and the BJP earlier Jana Sangh depending majorly in the majority community votes with construction Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, restoring the pride of the Hindus, uniform civil code, abrogation of article 370 etc being its core issues to beget votes during elections.

For the last two, three decades the major muslim vote bank as well as the traditional votes of the SC and ST got badly distracted from the Congress Party thus going in the lap of the Samajwadi Party and BSP being led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahan Mayavati. As a result the major states like Uttar Pradesh giving 80 MPs to Lok Sabha and half of Rajya Sabha MPs including Bihar, Assam, MP, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh etc has gone to BSP, SP, Janata Dal ( Nitish – BJP combine) and now to BJP having in all lost 20 states to the saffron party, thus having its negligible presence in the country.

In India the votes of the muslims have been playing an extremely crucial role in formation of governments in states and the centre. India has a whopping 180 million muslim population with having thier credible say in almost 218 parliamentary seats of the country. It may be even more if we get the report of the latest census. However, according to the 2011 census India has about 79% non muslim population whereas the muslims account for over 15%.

As per the conservative estimate the muslims possess 10 % influence in the vote share process in every constituency of the country on an average and is considered to be a consolidated voting pattern with the largest state UP having approximately 22% muslim votes impacting several constituencies of assembly as well as the parliament.

Since then, the Nehru Gandhi scion and the Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi have been trying his utmost to ensure that this majority chunk of its traditional vote bank comes back into the Congress Party’s fold and with this intent in mind he convened an interactive session of a handful of ( 12 persons) intellectuals who also included former senior most bureaucrats on 11 th of June at his Tuglak Road residence in New Delhi.

During the interaction amongst other issues somebody raised the matter pertaining to the increasing incidents of lynching of people of a particular community on various pretexts like cow vigilantism, eating habits and prevalance of hate atmosphere in the country asking Rahul Gandhi as to what is the Congress party doing to protect the minorities of the country ? or something related to the context.

Issues pertaining to Sachchar Commisions recommendations were also raised during this closed door meeting to which Rahul tried to assured the soured tempers. While replying to these questions Rahul Gandhi catagorically said that the Congress Party had been the only genuine saviour of the Muslim community since its inception and that it considers it its primary and foremost duty to protect their every interest, whatsoever by all means in the same manner as it’s concerned for the dalits, backwards and the down trodden sections of the country.

He added that instead of appreciating its pro minority gesture parties like BJP accuse it as the party of the muslims and he further added if it says so YES, I have no hesitation to say that we are the party of muslims because protecting the minorities or any other deprived sections of the society, is our primary, foremost n the constitutional duty.

Though the meeting was a highly secretive one and not open for reporting or media, someone present in the meeting leaked the news to INQUILAB, a prominent Urdu paper of the country extremely popular amongst the muslim community. Subsequently, it published the front top banner news highlighting Rahul’s statement titled as : Haan Congress Musalmaanon ki party hai.

Then what, all hell broke out and the entire television channels and the print media carried out banner news followed by unaccounted live debates with even prime minister Narendra Modi questioning publicly the Nehru Gandhi scion at Azamgarh asking hum if the Congress party really the party of only muslims, meaning what about others like the majority community and other sections of the society.

While this move of Rahul Gandhi, say the political analysts, will for sure, help in consolidating the minority vote bank all over the country in Congress’s favour the way prime minister Modi used the issue in his largely attended public meeting may in future result in large scale polarisation of the majority vote bank thus cutting across the caste considerations in the saffron party’s favour.

Sometimes, in politics a little non issue becomes a huge issue that carries further unexpected implications and ramifications and it seems that Rahul Gandhi’s statement may perhaps go a long way in creating a vast division between these two communities in order to derive maximum political mileage during the national electionsof 2019 by the major political parties in the fray.

The minority vote bank of the muslims plays a credible role in the politics of the country for parties like Congress, SP, BSP, RJD, Janata Dals and the left but it has been visualised and experienced that after the charismatic leadership of Narendra Modi and the vast influence of the saffronisation after 2014 the deflection in the votes of muslim and the wave of majoritarianism has crushed every calculation thus enabling the saffron party win in 20 states incessantly n Congress losing badly at the hustings.

However, after the not much success of demonetisation, GST, and the subsequent failure on the employment and price rise fronts including the Kashmir issue the Modi factor seems to be on somewhat declining trend though after giving certain concessions to the farmers of the country on maximum support price etc the BJP led NDA government is trying hard to win the hearts of the farming community which is also considered to be the deciding vote bank.

Anyways, whatever may be the outcome of the 2019 elections but one thing is still for sure and that is Modi still seems to have a upper hand with his outstanding dynamic histronics and marketing skills.

If at all Rahul Gandhi and rest of the non BJP forces need to come to power at the centre, they have only one n one option of a united opposition with a singularly unanimously accepted leader who can challange him outrightly and with credible dynamism and precision. But this has to fructify fast as the time is running expeditiously and 2019 nearing with a galloping speed. What’s your take friends?