Viju Cherian
In this poll season, the Opposition must stop making two mistakes, and do it fast. One, it should not fall into the nationalism debate and hope to outplay the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); and two, stop personal attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A combination of factors — suave messaging, campaign theatrics, electioneering strategy and oratorical play — have helped the BJP and Modi on this count. Probably because public memory is short, logic and facts are not the guiding principles here. It is the narrative and how successfully it is woven that determines the plot.
On the nationalism debate and the nationalist tempo it generates, the BJP (and by extension the Right-wing) has managed to keep the other parties on the margins. An impression has been created that national security and national interest is best served by the BJP — and that other political parties are not up to the mark.
Now this can be debated ad nauseam but the argument will still shed light favourably on the BJP. This is because more often than not debates on nationalism are prime examples of the ad hominem fallacy and there’s no winning such an argument. Moreover, the Opposition’s focus on nationalism favours the BJP, as it turns away public attention from many grave issues that need to be debated. For example, so far there has been little attention given to the data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), which states that the unemployment rate at 7.2 per cent is the highest since September 2016.
Similarly, by talking about the politicisation of the February 14 Pulwama attack in Kashmir or the February 26 Balakot airstrike in Pakistan, the Opposition is playing into the BJP’s hands.
In this vein, the tweet by former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah is to the point. Abdullah said that the Opposition must “keep the messaging focused on the economy, rural distress, unemployment, agriculture & all the other things BJP doesn't want discussed”.
That brings us to the second mistake. If there is one thing that the past five years has showed, it is that personal attacks on Modi do not stick — on the contrary, they often help the BJP.
Right from Sonia Gandhi’s ‘Maut Ka Saudagar’ comment in 2007 to Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Dalali’ comment in 2016, from ‘Chailwala’ to ‘Neech’ — they have all backfired on the Congress. The latest in this long line of personal attacks on Modi is the irresponsible comment made by Belur Gopalakrishna, a Congress leader from Karnataka. In a month-old video that now came to light, the former MLA is seen condemning a Hindu group by saying, “you should shoot and kill your Modi”. Even in the dirty game of politics, as it is often accused of being, there’s no excuse for such a statement. It is irresponsible statements such as these that help the BJP while on the campaign trail.
From 2013 great care has been taken to cultivate the image of Modi as a development crusader and a leader who does not tolerate corruption. Slogans such as ‘Na khaunga, na khane dunga’ have added an aura that mesmerises the ‘aam aadmi’. It must not be forgotten that it was Modi’s personal capital that helped him and the government sail smoothly through the doldrums of demonetisation. If people were ready to suffer through it, it was because they believed in Modi’s personal integrity as a leader. By dexterously focusing on the Rafale deal and alleging that corruption has taken place in the deal, Rahul Gandhi has managed to dent that image to a small extent. However, the Balakot attack and the BJP’s use of it in speeches by its leaders seems to have overcome that.
The Opposition must be willing to learn from its past mistakes, and not repeat them if it wants to mount a credible challenge to the BJP in the forthcoming polls.
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