'BJP Has Suddenly Lost Control Of The Narrative' Says Shashi Tharoor To India Today

the elections of 2024 have rumbled on and have now reached the halfway stage three rounds done four to go half the country has voted and some Trends are being picked up by analysts and theologists but there's also plenty of speculation amidst jittery markets local anti-incumbency and of course the Modi Factor but is there a central Campaign theme that's emerged in the last month from Kashmir to kanyakumari what are the messages that have stood out in the election campaign so far and how do the two parties see their position at the halfway mark we're joined on the political Rumble to answer all those questions two very special guests Dr Shashi T of the congress party its MB candidate from tyu anantapuram and three-time MP and swapan Das Gupta former rajas saaba MP of the Bara J party and part of its intellectual cell so two clear voices are joining us here on the show we've spoken to them separately and we're going to raise the questions that matter as we enter the halfway mark of the battle for 2024 I first spoke to Dr Shashi taru Dr T what according to you is the central Narrative of this 2024 election campaign so far there's a sense that we haven't been able to pick up a dominant theme at the moment at times there's talk that the Congress started off about cast census now the BJP playing Hindu Muslim politics RAM on one side rosar on the other is there a central theme according to you of this campaign well I would say that what has happened Raz is that the BJP which is specialized in setting the agenda of every election National or state for the last 10 years has suddenly lost control of the narrative and what you're seeing is their attempts to move away from economic issues where there has failure has been spectacular and from the alternative Narrative of 2019 which was the National Security narrative which has also been a failure on the Chinese border they decided they were going to go with the hindutva narrative centering the campaign around the ram Mand and aoda uh and that fell flat to their own surprise because that was no longer enough and as the India block came up with a series of issues centered around the well-being of the voter the N concept the five principles of collective social justice uh suddenly you actually had an alternative narrative that was commanding the space which is let this election folks be about you the voter about your well-being about your life and because the BJP didn't have an answer to that the Prime Minister the home minister and other campaigners double down upon the hinda narrative and went into this extraordinary paroxismo rhetoric on Hindu Muslim issues which I believe has been a sign of their desperation but they've not been able to drag the election narrative back into that the rest of us are simply uh I must say recoiling in revulsion at the kind of language we're hearing from no less an eminence than our prime minister and we are focusing on what really matters to the voter So my answer is the short answer is what matters in terms of a narrative today is what does this election mean to you to you the voter and if it means a quest for social justice we have the answers to that if it means frustration about unemployment because you voted for Mr Modi 10 years ago and he still hasn't been able to deliver you a job then we have the answers for that if it's frustrations about the fact that you're income has dropped in the last 10 years as 80% of Indians have then we have the answers for that and if indeed it is about the fundamental question of your finally asking yourselves what has the Modi government done for you other than give you wonderful rhetoric about hindutva and you can't find the good answer then either you vote for us or you stay at home and we're seeing examples of both in the first three phases I think this is going to be a game-changing election and the lack of a narrative as you to see as you suggest is going to lead to the day when the only narrative that matters is the exit of this government you know you're saying the narrative that the opposition has tried to put forward is The Narrative of you of looking at individual making it about individuals and get they're getting NY or justice but the opposition uh is also being accused of playing identity politics Dr tun if the BJP is accused of playing hindutva politics they are accusing the opposition of trying certainty the Congress and Rahul Gandhi are playing the politics of cast and identity of suggesting svan or the Constitution is in danger if the BJP gets 400 seats uh your reservations will go away so the opposition also is Accused in a way of playing identity politics of their own and the politics of fear as well to an extent I don't buy that I mean frankly all that Rahul Gandhi has said on the whole question of the C sensus is don't we need to understand what the picture is really within the country I mean ultimately let's face it every state and every central government institution does offer benefits or withhold benefits on the basis of your cast affiliation that's a reality we can't get away from and that's been the reality for many decades already in those circumstances surely knowing what exactly the picture is is an innocuous requirement all he's saying is let's take a look I mean the word x-ray has been distorted by our critics the fact is what he means is an x-ray shows you what the picture is inside your body an x-ray of society will show you what the picture is inside your Society all he's talking about is let's get a proper diagnosis we haven't come up with a prescription yet depending on what the findings are there will be a discussion of the nation and only then will we even be in a position to do anything about that but right now all we've said about cast is let's know what the reality is who can object to that but the prescription Dr T many believe that the Congress subtly or not so subtly is offering according to the government is redistribution of wealth and this has raised concerns in certain quarters that the Congress rather than rewarding wealth creators in the middle class is talking now of redistribution of wealth that's a theme that the prime ministers picked up on but R we we haven't said that we haven't said that you know our critics cannot put words into our mouth MH yes no your our critics cannot Define for us what we stand for the congress party Manifesto is what we're running on what we stand behind I was a member of the manifesto committee and I'm astonished by the caricaturing of that Manifesto we've seen coming out of the BJP number one they claim it was written by the Muslim League the word Muslim doesn't even feature in the manifesto second it talks about redistribution they claim the word redistribution doesn't figure in the manifesto we've in fact talked about a stable predictable tax system that will actually allow entrepreneurs to flourish in our society so this kind of mischaracterization of what the Congress stands for or intends to do is part of the typical negative politics we have long associated with the BJP and I'm disappointed that someone like you Raj would fall prey to allowing their mischaracterizations to Define your questions to us ask us about what we have actually said what we have actually published on the manifesto and we'll be very happy to answer that Dr thur I have gone through your Manifesto in some detail and the question therefore Still Remains is the Congress is still in a position to offer a totally different Vision to what the Modi government is offering and therefore if I may ask you this so that let's get this absolutely clear you are saying it's a completely different Vision to the Modi Vision but what are those three things according to you that you believe make your vision stand out and which according to you in this C campaign have become your three calling cards if I may call them that first of all it's Justice I mean this has been a problem for the BJP right along with us going back to the 2004 election when they grandly proclaimed India shining without ever asking the question who India was shining for we are a party that actually cares about those who have been left behind those are marginalized those have been excluded and that's the first major difference between us we stand for an India that will actually give people opportunities who haven't had them during 10 years of Modi rule second we stand for inclusion they stand for exclusion and that means inclusion of all people of all religious and other community identifications all casts all languages all regions of our country the me the BJP stands for Hindi hindutva Hindustan and the recent rhetoric of the BJP leadership has explicitly pointed at including one Community from the benefits of indianness and that is the Muslim Community who've been demonized as infiltrators who've been demonized as people who don't have the same rights as as as as Hindus in this country so that's the second major difference the third major difference very frankly is one of diversity both political diversity in the composition of the India block and the diversity in terms of the kind of representation you see across the India Alliance India block as well as the diversity we celebrate within our parties we really want to mirror India as India is or bat as barhat is we are not interested in a partial narrow-minded exclusionary version of the country that Mr Modi embodies and articulates uh we don't disagree that welfare is essential we will probably do something things differently you've seen from our specific suggestions things like the Mahal lakmi program and so on and one final difference or you only ask for three is that we unlike Mr Modi have committed to Rolling back many of his anti-e decisions pronouncements and laws we will for example we are committed to abolishing the AGN scheme which is destroying the professionalism of our army we are committed to not making it possible for example to persist with the kind of amendments to the UAP that allows the government to lock up people without trial without charge and without bail which is completely inhumane and antithetical to the spirit of democracy if you have a problem with somebody by all means arrest them temporarily but produce them before a court and charge them before a court Mr modi's government no longer permits that having amended UAP to lock up people without charge we will also ensure that things like citizenship Amendment act which at the moment has introduced religion into the notion of citizenship we will not we will ensure that Indian citizenship has nothing to do with religion these are the kinds of changes that make us a very different government from what Mr Modi has led in the last 10 years and yet during the campaign Dr tul we've seen what some are calling Weapons of Mass distraction and the accusation is also made or the claim is made that the opposition has thrown some self goals that the government has every reason to respond and then smash out of the park so whether it's a Sam Petr calling one day for a debate on inheritance Stacks or remarks of it which suggest some form of racial profiling or indeed thereare I say when you and leaders in Maharashtra when you were in Mumbai seem to suggest that 2611 terror attack might have had a non- Pakistan RSS angle to it which needed to be investigated all of this has been used by the Modi government and the BJP to smash the ball out of the park and and and almost change the narrative no no no that's again A caricature of what was actually said and which is one of the reasons why I posted my entire remarks on the subject uh we of course the attack was perpetrated by Pakistan directed terrorists of course we know that because we are the ones who arrested the terrorists and actually put them on put the the survivors on trial and indeed having accumulated all the evidence presented it to the world and execu of the man so there is no question all the comment that was raised by the leader of the opposition Maharashtra was about one possible case of one person having been killed by bullets that did not come from this character they killed 166 people the only question is about one person one victim uh so again all this caricature we're letting Pakistan off the hook certainly not uh we have we stood Behind these words and don't forget it is a UPA government that presented the case against Pakistani Terror to the rest of the world and earned Pakistan the opprobrium at rightly deserved for having ordered and and and and and conducted essentially this terrorist attack on foreign soil from its soil whether it was done with the knowledge of the government or not is a different matter but it was done from Pakistan no one doubts that no one in the up is questioning that okay now coming back to your first Point San Peta is a wonderful man living in Chicago why his comment should be the substance of an election in India is bizarre and it's again a reflection of the gullibility I'm sorry to say of our friends in the media in allowing essential irrelevancies to become major distractions because that suits the interest of the ruling party you know there there are other interesting references in recent days the reference that the Prime Minister made yesterday to adani and Amani suggesting that they may be giving black money to the Congress and hence the Congress was silent in them Rahul Gandhi has of course responded strongly but does all of this surprise you do you see all of this as being weapons of mass destrction in an election that doesn't seem to have enthused the voters away from issues like rosar that you claim should have been the key to this election absolutely I think it's astonishing that it's been done I think first of all it's an indication of the Prime Minister and the BJP leadership's increasing desperation they're flailing about for things to fling at the Congress given the fact that they clearly have read the writing on the wall I mean we're not the only ones who can do the calculations coming out of the first three phases and the mood of the public they realize that their number is up and so there's this desperate flailing about for whatever they can throw at the at the Congress the examples you gave were were were good examples and here's another one I mean it's laughable that when Rahul Gandhi has actually been attacking these particular gentlemen as having been excessively benefiting from Mr modi's rule uh why does Mr Modi say why have you stopped attacking them Mr R Gandhi has attacked him every single day during the last campaign throughout the campaign there's not a day that he's been unrelenting on the subject so I think Mr Modi frankly doesn't he has no longer anything sensible to say but he keeps hogging the headlines by saying things that are not terribly sensible and this is one of them but but one of the things that is making the headlines is Muslim reservation and this has pushed the opposition some believe on the back foot there's a belief that somewhere the BJP has chosen to interpret your Manifesto and this is the prime minister as well that the Congress if it comes to power will ensure in some form Muslim reservation and thereby playing on the insecurities and fears that Hindus may have how do you respond is this again somewhere where the opposition perhaps is allowed Mr Modi to play Hindu politics when you have the likes of Lalu Prasad speak about Muslim reservations play on his pitch Raj you say you've read the Manifest you know perfectly well there is no reference to Muslim reservation and the manifesto I mean the fact of the matter is Mr Modi is deliberately conflating an issues that the BJP had tried to flog during the last kic elections with the loka elections nationally now we all very well know that in our country there are reservations both by the national government and by state governments and that those reservations will vary and as far as the this particular Lo SAA election is concerned it's about the national government and therefore it's not a set of state issues it so happens that in two or three states yes state governments have at different times implemented policies under which some Muslims have been deemed to be part of the obcs and in those States Muslims also benefit are also included amongst those eligible under OBC reservations but that is not yet a central government policy at any stage nor has it been proposed by us in our Manifesto so again it's a deliberate confliction by the BJP of the reality in two or three states I think karnatak Tamil NAD and Kerala have variations of this provision and and uh and and the Congress party's National Manifesto which does not have this provision so once again we're talking about issues that don't exist you know it's an amazing issue we we published a Manifesto I was very proud to be part of the committee that prepared it and and I we all thought that this might be discussed by the public and we paid much attention to it we never expected a day would come when the only discussion would be on things we haven't said in the manifesto but they claim we intend I mean this is absurd I mean this is almost a sort of aan world that we're living in in this particular election let me just step back a bit Dr THU 2014 was seen as an election as a vote for change people wanted to get rid of the UPA government at the time 2019 was seen as a vote for a kind of post balakot muscular leadership that the Prime Minister was seen to offer uh uh Prime Minister Modi supporters claimed that this time voters want to vote for stability for continuity for more of the same for example continuity with 5 kg free ration per month to poor families the government's supporters say that this is an election uh where the majority of people want stability and continuity and that's the real narrative away from all the other issues that are being made talking points and headlines well because the fact is very simply that stability to achieve what I mean the the the question that I have asked Mr Modi and his fans and his his parties uh representatives in the last few years is what have you done for the people who voted for you 10 years ago expecting that You' be delivering jobs to them when they still don't have jobs what have you done for people whom you promised to double the income of farmers and you have not even raised Farmers income by 10% what have you done to justify the faith of those you said you would return 15 lakhs of black money for every Indian citizen put them in their bank account what have you done for them what have you done essentially to make sure that the Army in this country is able to afford a decent standard of living in Three Square meals a day you've impose punitive taxes on fuel diesel petrol and so on which have driven up the prices of all other Commodities and India is a very price sensitive Nation even if you can say that our inflation is not high by global standards it is high by what the Indian public can bear so we are talking about basic issues of welfare stability doesn't guarantee welfare the track record of Co I governments in India has been far better than those of one party governments when it comes to economic growth and human well-being and I believe that the coalition government that the India block is going to bring into office soon after June 4th will be able to match the record of other Coalition governments in giving India better economic growth and better progress than India has seen in the last 10 years of Mr moodi but Dr tun you you're saying now that the India Alliance government will come to par on June 4th the fact is this election has started with the BJP saying up bar Charo par even in the worst case scenario most theologists believe the BJP could go down to 270 280 but still be well ahead of the India Alliance are you in that sense daydreaming when you say India Alliance will form a government on June 4th I haven't heard anything from India Alliance Partners to suggest how they will form a government it's one thing to say BJP won't cross 400 but how will you form a government especially the Congress which has to rise from just 53 seats last time look uh rad it's very simple the fact remains that uh the F half the seats have voted so far in the first three phases the other half have to vote in the remaining four phases and the trends emerging from that are a certain degree of exension or absenteeism in the BJP strongholds and enthusiastic turnout for opposition candidates in our areas or the areas where we expected people to show up and support us the signs we're getting point to a dramatic decline in bdp's vote they only have a majority of 31 seats at 33 every indication is that the present Trends continue and that of course is an if that they're going to drop well below 240 in fact instead of abar char it's going to be abar for the BJP and they're going to lose at least 300 seats across the country altoe for their Alliance and they will end up somewhere south of 240 seats at which level I think all bets are off they may still uh be given an opportunity to attempt to form a government but I don't see the BJP finding Allah is willing to Su with the devil as it were uh at that level and you're likely very very much to see uh uh the alternative India block coming together and some of the current fence sitters joining us as well uh I don't think any of us is suggesting that it'll be a complete sweeping wave ction for us there's no sign of a wave on either side but I think the apathy and indifference of the bjp's core supporters is enough to demonstrate that they are the ones who have much more to fear on the 4th of June you know all I can say Dr T is that the BJP seems to believe very clearly that it's the Congress and opposition voters who are not coming to the polling booths that they believe there's an inevitability to the outcome uh but you're giving a completely different perspective so what can I say K here for the opposition you seem to live in Hope and you're certainly seemingly more hopeful than you were just a month ago we are very hopeful radep and I think the nation too will wake to a new dor when the results are out on the 4th of June Shashi darur thank you very much for giving us an opposition perspective on the state of play as you see it at the halfway mark in this 2024 election

Channel: India Today

Views: 208,246

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Id: BXi4hYihs7A

Length: 23min 23sec (1403 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2024