The most intriguing political development in the last couple of weeks is not the exponential rise of the AAP, its membership drives or the BJP leaders getting increasingly restive, but the sudden disappearance of the Congress from public debates.
The party has mysteriously gone under the radar and its defence is largely left to two ineffective spokespersons, who often sound like Army PROs, that too at a time when it should be firing on all cylinders. With barely a few months to the Lok Sabha elections, you would expect the party to field its best faces upfront. And if one really takes Rahul Gandhi's commitment to new blood at face value, this is the time to showcase it.
The party's top brass and its otherwise talkative and wisecracking PR machinery pulling back from the front-lines cannot be coincidental. There is certainly a strategy -- engage a proxy to take on the enemy till you ready your force and armoury. Lying low otherwise at this crucial time is as good as conceding defeat even before the battle has begun.
The proxy for the Congress is the AAP, a providential gift. All that the party needed was to pull out of the fray and let the amorphous AAP fill up its space and get the BJP rattled. With so many chinks in its armour, the Congress would have wanted relief from a relentlessly bad-mouthing Modi and people with similar instincts or skills. The party is at its weakest and is most likely to get hurt more if it engages in direct combat.
So, the battle is now between the BJP and the AAP.
Interestingly, the BJP also has forgotten the Congress and has reserved its repertoire of invective for the AAP. Over the last few days, the BJP spokespersons have taken out every single weapon in its armoury that it had used against the Congress to dent the AAP - from nationalism and Kashmir to corruption, populism and inefficiency. Its response to the attack on the AAP office on Wednesday also showed that it wouldn't spare the newbie from its trademark double-speak when it comes to attacks by Hindu splinter groups: "We condemn the attack, but we also condemn Prashant Bhushan" is a line that effectively justifies and encourages such attacks.
The BJP couldn't have been this edgy and AAP-centric had the Congress also been in the fray. The Congress has rightly sensed that taking on the debutant will further erode its public support because the latter has an image and agenda that have struck a chord with the people and at the moment using its time-tested dirty tricks to stop it will backfire. Frankly, the Congress is not sure of the ammunition that it could use against a swelling underground movement. Not able to size up the enemy is a crisis that it needs to tide over.
What better way than to appear non-combative when you are weak - so that you don't alienate people further - and do everything to make the BJP anxious. Every response of noted Congress leaders, except outliers such as Manish Tewari, to a victorious AAP shows that the party, by and large, has only good words for Kejriwal.
Mani Shankar Aiyar openly wished that AAP would stop Modi from becoming the prime minister while Digvijaya Singh wanted Modi to learn austerity and humility from Kejriwal. Singh even asked civil society leaders to learn from the AAP. Manmohan Singh on Wednesday also indirectly complimented AAP when he alluded to the new media strengthening democracy.
The best was from Jairam Ramesh, who reportedly said: "We cannot ignore Aam Aadmi Party... Because what they are agitating about-- corruption, austerity in politics, simplicity in politics-- these are legitimate values," adding, "don't make fun of them. Making fun of them would be proved wrong,"
In contrast, the BJP didn't have a single word of appreciation for AAP because it's certainly losing sleep. On Thursday, an eight-city survey by Times of India said that 31 per cent of its respondents believed that in the Lok Sabha polls the AAP will hurt BJP the most. About 33 per cent of them also believed that the AAP might win 26-50 seats while 26 per cent thought the number could touch 100. About 44 per cent of them also said that they would vote for an AAP candidate.
Till recently, Modi was revelling in his uncontested cross-country march to vanquish Rahul Gandhi, but suddenly he has to open a new front, with sufficient men and armament, to fight Kejriwal, whose strength is galloping by the day. A membership-swell of 15,000 a day is worrisome because they are real votes; the BJP is in trouble.
So, what exactly is the Congress's plan? Has it already conceded defeat and would want to somehow prevent the BJP from coming to power by voluntarily not opposing the AAP? Or is it attempting a "feigned retreat" that the Spartans used in the Battle of Thermopylae?"
If it hasn't conceded defeat, it can only be a "feigned defeat", aimed at the BJP and not the AAP. Its hope, in such a situation, will be to push the BJP into a weak spot and return from the retreat for the final attack. As defence experts know, it's a tricky tactic. The question is if the Congress will still have its artillery and men intact or if the AAP by then would have marched away with the trophy?
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