BJP is wasting time over Rahul Gandhi's passport

Rahul Gandhi should actually send a thank you note to Subramaniam Swamy for giving him free publicity and oodles of sympathy from out of the blue. And if Modi government were to swallow the Swamy bait hook, line and sinker, another thank you note will be in order from the Congress vice president.

The Modi government will be playing with fire if it were to give traction to Swamy's sensational allegation against Rahul about his alleged British citizenship unless it can prove it with legally admissible evidence.

The Swamy-woven web can entangle Rahul and the Congress party only if it can withstand judicial scrutiny. It has only that much purchase value and the BJP must not play the game for scoring brownie points. Swamy has already met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on the issue and Swaraj would be wise enough to understand that she can't fight her own UK fire (the Lalit Modigate) by igniting another UK fire aimed at the Congress yuvraj. That would explain why she hasn't formally ordered her ministry and the Indian embassy in UK to probe the issue though discreet enquiry must have been conducted.

Swamy's Rahul gamble, which is likely to be a bad one, is unlikely to lend much heft to BJP. In fact, this is a God-send for the Congress in general and Rahul in particular, to hit back at the Modi government. This is precisely what has happened with new belligerant voice from Rahul which puts the ball squarely in the BJP's court.

This is what Rahul said on November 19: "I will want to say this Modiji, it's your government, you have all the agencies. Set them after me. Show your 56-inch chest. Launch an investigation against me and if you find anything in six months put me in jail. But stop using your lackeys to throw dirt at me or my family."

The handling of the Rahul-UK controversy shows that the Modi government is barking up the wrong tree. At a time when the Modi government, which will complete 18 months in office next week, needs cooperation from the Congress party, not acrimony.

Modi and his BJP have just experienced a humiliating defeat in Bihar elections. The Modi government is bracing to push sweeping reforms post-Bihar. The laws are passed in Parliament by parliamentarians. The government can't do this by ordinance route and has to go back to Parliament which begins its winter session on November 26.

The Modi government cannot pass laws to push reforms without the Opposition's support. Thus, the principle Opposition like Congress party is pivotal to the Modi government's reform-oriented growth agena even though the government has not given the Leader of Opposition status to  Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The government needs Opposition help to push major legislations like GST bill and land acquisition bill. You can't do all this by throwing barbs at top leaders of the main Opposition party.

The BJP leadership and strategists have to understand and implement the art of managing the Opposition. Now see the BJP's bankruptcy in this aspect! Just when Arun Jatitley was meeting Rahul Gandhi to invite him to his daughter's wedding on December 6, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar was on his own trip, publicly announcing that Rahul's brother-in-law Robert Vadra will be in jail for wrongdoings within six months. Khattar was obviously unaware of what all his party's central leadership was having up his sleeve.

This is what Modi and his BJP need to learn fron the Bihar fiasco. The BJP may have erred in reading the Indian elections' tea leaves correctly but all political parties keep committing such mistakes. The problem arises when the ruling party does precious little to have cordial relations with the Opposition in Parliament.

After all, it is the responsibility of the government, not the Opposition, to run Parliament smoothly.