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Arguably, senior Congress leaders have made up their minds to adopt a combative strategy to take on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. It seems that the fight has simplified into one between the Congress and Modi, a man the ruling party wants to cut to size because of his proximity to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing organisation that sees India as primarily a Hindu country.
In 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress refrained from personal attacks on Lal Krishna Advani despite the BJP launching a corrosive campaign contrasting its 'Iron Man' with the 'weakest ever' Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh). Instead, it focused on telling a success story that it said derived from its good governance. However, the United Progressive Alliance II carries a 'negative' image and so the Grand Old Party has chosen to expose its challenger rather than tell its own story.
Political pundits are of the view that a personalised campaign against the Hindutva icon could prove a double-edged sword: it could put Modi on the centre-stage and make him appear the principal political figure in the country as well. Congress observers feel that the party has decided to take a gamble at this juncture probably because the Manmohan Singh-led government has lost its sheen and anti-incumbency has begun to hurt after 10 years of rule.
As of now, the Congress game plan is to attack the Gujarat Chief Minister directly and try to puncture his lofty claims of development with statistics. A team of experienced leaders -- P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Jairam Ramesh, Anand Sharma, Salman Khurshid and Digvijaya Singh -- have been assigned this task. Many Congress leaders have referred to Modi as ‘Feku’ and questioned the figures he quotes to buttress his tall claims.
In an interview with Reuters, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh painted Modi as a dangerous extremist and comparing his rise to the birth of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. “Political autocracy, social divisiveness and economic liberalism. That's Modi reduced to three dimensions," the minister added. “Exactly what created the autobahns and the Volkswagens in the 30s but also created the disaster of Germany. India right now in 2013 - I would say we are going through what Germany went through in 1932.” In June this year, when the minister acknowledged that Modi posed a serious challenge, there were angry reactions within the party.
The Congress spin doctors plan to project Modi as a corporate player who has done little for the middle class and has little concern at all for the poor.
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh too has been attacking the Gujarat CM, but he has focused on economic indices like per capita debt liability in Gujarat being the highest and reduction in poverty the lowest.
The Congress has decided to engage Modi on controversial issues of Article 370, uniform civil code and Ram temple at Ayodhya along with foreign and economic policies, reported the Hindustan Times. The saffron party maintains it will scrap Article 370, which accords special status to Jammu and Kashmir, from the Constitution, enforce a uniform civil code for all citizens of the country irrespective of their religion and construct a grand Ram temple at Ayodhya if it comes to power at the Centre on its own.
Probably the only thing that can be said of with any certainty is that the attacks on Modi failed to yield results in the 2002 and 2007 Gujarat elections, the Congress changed tack last year, avoiding the charge of communalism against Modi. The Congress think tank believes that giving Modi a free run will prove to be detrimental. That Gujarat approach is unlikely to work nationally but the Congress hasn’t unveiled a concrete alternative yet. Analysts say Modi is exploiting the prevalent mood in the country, stepping into the Congress’s leadeship vacuum.
