The Congress is divided about whether Vice President Rahul Gandhi should join Digvijaya Singh for the Gujarat leg of the party veteran’s six-month Narmada Parikrama.
Singh, who embarked on the 3,300 km yatra on foot from his home state Madhya Pradesh on October 1, reached Gujarat last week. He is touring 20 Assembly constituencies in the poll-bound state on foot, including Nandod, Netrang and Dedipada, which have a large tribal population. Gandhi, meanwhile, kicked off his two-day tour of Gujarat with a visit to the Somnath temple on Wednesday and will visit the state again before voting begins on December 9.
While a large section of the party believe it would be a good idea for the party vice president to join Singh in Gujarat, others think it would be wise for the Nehru-Gandhi scion to maintain his distance from the controversial leader.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that to his knowledge, the Narmada yatra was not a part of Gandhi’s travel plans. However, party officials said Ashok Gehlot, the Congress general secretary in-charge of Gujarat, has been discussing with Singh the possibility of Gandhi’s participation in the yatra.
Temple run
Though Singh has described the yatra as a religious and spiritual exercise, the political significance of the journey is hard to miss. In the six-month tour, he is covering 110 Assembly constituencies and discussions with local Congress leaders on the way. Through the yatra, the veteran leader hopes to reclaim his pre-eminent political position in Madhya Pradesh’s politics before the state goes to polls next year. At the same time, Singh also wants to make it known that he is true to his Hindu moorings.
Gandhi is also trying to do the same. In what is being interpreted as a soft Hindutva strategy, the Congress vice president kick-started his election campaign in Gujarat in September with a halt at the Dwarkadhish temple and has since visited several temples, including Vir Megh Maya in Patan, Khodiyar Maa in Varana and Maa Bahuchar at Becharaji in Mehsana district and most recently, the Somnath temple.
Several Congress leaders feel that that making a brief appearance at Singh’s yatra could help further this cause and help the party fight the perception that it practices the politics of minority appeasement.
“If he can visit other temples, why can’t he participate in the Narmada yatra?” asked a senior Congress office bearer. He said that with several other leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath joining Singh’s yatra, it would be odd if Gandhi did not participate, particularly when it is passing through Gujarat.
Changing the agenda
But others in the party fear that this move could boomerang. Singh has made several controversial statements and has spoken out about saffron terror, which the Bharatiya Janata Party and other Sangh parivar outfits have used to paint him and by extension, the Congress, as anti-Hindu.
Gandhi’s presence at the yatra could give fodder to the BJP to revive this campaign and spread the word that the Congress vice-president endorses the Singh’s views.
The BJP’s campaigners, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Party President Amit Shah, have tried to give a communal tinge to the campaign for Gujarat with references to the release of Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafeez Saeed in Pakistan and the Rohingya refugee crisis in their election speeches.
The Congress is trying its best not to take the bait and has instead run a focused campaign against the BJP on its poor handling of the country’s economy, tardy implementation of the Goods and Services Tax and agrarian distress. “Rahulji has directed all campaigners not to digress from economic issues...we have been told not to get provoked by communally-charged statements made by BJP leaders,” said a senior Congress functionary.
As a result, the Congress has succeeded in putting the BJP on the defensive, forcing the saffron patry’s leaders to respond to these charges and discuss the development agenda. But this is a challenging position to maintain as was seen on Wednesday, when the BJP raked up a row by claiming that Gandhi had signed in the register for non-Hindus during his visit to the Somnath temple. The Congress was drawn into the controversy when it responded saying that it was not the party vice president but an aide who accidently signed in that register.
With less than two weeks to go for the first phase of polling in Gujarat, the Congress cannot afford to give more opportunities to the BJP to derail its campaign by shifting public attention from economic issues to Hindutva, terrorism and nationalism.
