Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 23: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has advised the arch rival BJP to “sit up and take note” of Rahul Gandhi, who he stressed, has ignited an enthusiasm among young voters.
It is because the BJP has paid attention to Rahul Gandhi that they are “trying to demonise him,” Shashi Tharoor said at the NDTV World Summit in Delhi on Friday, rejecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charge that the Congress continues to launch a “failed product.”
“On the contrary I can tell you that I think Rahul Gandhi has ignited an enthusiasm, particularly amongst younger voters in the last few months, which I think the BJP would be well advised to sit up and pay attention to,” Mr Tharoor said. “In fact, I suspect it’s because they have paid attention to him that they are trying to demonise him in this way,” he stressed.
The failed product jab by BJP is often lobbed at Rahul Gandhi, projecting him as a non-serious politician. On Thursday, PM Modi without naming the Congress leader took a swipe at him. “I don’t know how long the Congress will continue to put the country at stake for the launch of its failed product. (The Satish Dhawan Space Centre at) Sriharikota does not see as many launches as the Congress tries, unsuccessfully, to launch its leader in a year,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi has been leading the Opposition protests against the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over what he calls “vote chori (vote theft).” The Nehru-Gandhi family, the Prime Minister argued, has become a burden on the Congress itself and claimed that senior leaders not only agree, but also discuss this privately with people in power.
Tharoor disagreed with this assessment too, citing his own example. “Ours is a party with a tremendous amount of inter-party democracy. Yes I have expressed views that have sometimes been at variance in my party but I’m still here. I’m still in the party: a choice to represent a section of the electorate, to campaign for my government as a leader, to chair a parliamentary committee, this one on external affairs. It’s not as if the mere fact that I may stand up and express different views makes me some sort of heretic or apostate,” he said.
The Prime Minister described Congress as a “parasite” that doesn’t allow others to progress and further claimed that voices of those who want to oppose the government in a democratic manner are being suppressed. “When it comes to the key issues of the future of the nation, I believe that the kind of values the Congress Party stands for, the kind of politics it practices, and indeed its current principles and opposition unity are all principles and policies I can strongly support. I think we are quite prepared to take on the BJP, the government, on a level playing field,” Tharoor said.
He also cited the Emergency period of 1975-77 to counter the BJP’s charge that the current wave of protests over alleged electoral fraud was anti-national or funded by entities in the West to effect “regime change.” “[PM Narendra] Modi does keep talking about the Emergency and how the Emergency was overthrown. How was it overthrown? Through an Opposition, where the RSS and the BJP were merging with socialists and leftists. They all united in order to defeat the government that had declared the Emergency. That’s recent Indian political history, just half a century ago,” Tharoor said, speaking of the defeat of the Indira Gandhi-led Congress regime by a unified Janata Party.
The former minister and diplomat also shot down the argument that violent protests such as those currently on in France could happen in India. “I think the line is very clearly drawn by our Constitution, by our laws. It is that peaceful protest is the democratic right of every Indian citizen; violence is not,” he said.
“What we’ve seen happening in France is not something that anybody in India’s political space would condone. I don’t, and I don’t think my party in any way would welcome [violence],” he asserted.
On the idea of “regime change” as mentioned by current protest leaders such as AISA president Neha Bora and lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan in some contexts such as Bangladesh, Shashi Tharoor said, “We (the Congress) believe in peaceful, organised, and disciplined protest. At the same time, we expect that if we can actually find the government, and the Election Commission as well, willing to be accountable for the deep irregularities [in] through the SIR (Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls) process in the last couple of years, then we believe there will once again be a clean system.
“The electoral rules will be restored, no Indian citizen will be deprived of their constitutional right to cast their vote and determine their own political choices, and in a free and fair election there will not be ‘regime change’; there will be government change. The Indian public has seen the inadequacies of the present government, but we want to bring that [change] about through free and fair elections.”
On how the Congress could align with the Left, AISA being one of them, while fighting each other in Tharoor’s home state Kerala and other places, the diplomat-turned-politician spoke of AISA chief Neha Bora to make a point. “These parties have their value, but Neha Bora wasn’t campaigning against us. I like her; she’s brought a lot of energy, colour, and life into the protest, the movement. It’s about the Congress party being a moderate party and about acceptance. It’s Opposition unity,” he said.