Congress’s Rahul move will take bite out of Modi’s attack on dynasty

Just a few months shy of the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress is probably focusing more on bringing in effective damage control measures than on chalking out radical new plans to make an impression in the polls. Also, the burden of the party's highly criticized second term in government weighs so heavily on its future that no new strategy can balance it out properly. That is also why, as most political analysts have suggested, Rahul Gandhi was not named the Prime Ministerial candidate of the party.

PTI

While some media outlets have suggested that the move ensures the Congress's impending defeat doesn't question the junior Gandhi's credentials and effectiveness, others have commented that naming Gandhi would dim whatever prospects the party has left.

However, as an Economic Times headline suggests, by not naming Rahul the PM candidate, the Congress will effectively soften Modi's blow on the party and will not cede abundant ground to Modi and the BJP to hit out at them. The headline, 'Modi has no rival to box', succinctly says what the Congress's primary aim must have been in not naming Gandhi or anyone else the PM candidate.

The move serves two purposes for the Congress. Given that the BJP and Modi have mounted their attack against the party on the dynasty politics plank, by not naming Rahul and declaring that he might not even be the PM candidate, the Congress makes the BJP's attack seem at least partially unfounded.

In fact, they also found themselves ground to retaliate to Modi's attack on the Gandhi family pulling the strings of the party by flaunting the fact that Rahul, despite the Opposition's speculation, has not been named the PM candidate and has been entrusted with a managerial role in the poll campaign.

On the other hand, the Congress can keep building its attack on BJP around Modi's alleged communal politics. While they will deprive the BJP of building an attack with teeth, the party itself can channelise its energies in criticising Modi as their PM candidate. Needless to say, an attack on a person, touted to lead the nation, is much stronger and makes a stronger impression in political mudslinging than an attack on a party peopled with several individuals with varied degrees of achievements and failures.

While this is no reason for Narendra Modi to worry (he has taken down the Gandhi family all the way to the damaad several times over), for the political audience, the BJP attack will definitely lose some of its fizz with time. And convincing large sections of important rural voting population that Congress is indeed a party built to worship the Gandhis will become that much more difficult for the BJP.