Why Modi should leave son-in-law alone and focus on achhe din
The war of words between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi reached another crescendo on Friday, when Modi took potshots at Robert Vadra at a function organised to honour Arun Jaitley's father-in-law and Rahul Gandhi, separately, threatened Modi with a logjam in Parliament over the Land Bill, mounting a metaphorical challenge to Modi's famed 56-inch chest.
Since his taking over as PM, Modi has sought to project himself as a statesman, launching national initiatives on cleanliness and financial inclusion and reaching out to the common man via his radio show Mann ki Baat. This is markedly different from Modi the campaigner who used a mix of rhetoric and personal slights to drive home his agenda. Phrases such as "Damaad ki sarkar", referring to Vadra's shenanigans during the UPA, were popularised by him.
In fact, Rahul Gandhi seems to have taken after Modi's style since the Congress' all-round defeat last year at the hustings. Since returning from his overseas jaunt, he has shown a new aggression which can only be attributed to his facing a formidable challenger in Modi. But at the end of the day how Modi and Rahul conduct their public business in mere histrionics, and in 2019, they will be tested on what they have achieved, rather than the digs they take on one another.
When the prime minister complimented late Jammu leader Girdhari Lal Dogra on his choice of son-in-law, Arun Jaitley, it was viewed in the Congress as a not-so-subtle swipe at Robert Vadra. It is possible that the prime minister was merely shooting the breeze before the storm that he expects in Parliament starting today over the land issue and the series of scams that have rocked the BJP. But if he was hoping to raise issues around propriety, the changed political climate will ensure that his plan backfires.
Two recent instances are instructive. One is the BJP's insistence after the unravelling of Lalitgate that there is a qualitative difference between the corruption of the UPA and its own. In this narrative, Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje may have helped Lalit Modi but no money exchanged hands and, therefore, no financial corruption took place. I am surprised that even seasoned BJP leaders have been caught spewing this bull. Anand Ranganathan, Newslaundry columnist and Twitter savant, has spoken repeatedly about Indian politicians' inability to see conflict of interest even when it is staring them in the face. Sushma Swaraj may not have benefitted financially from Lalitgate but the fact that she helped a friend obtain papers that he was not legally entitled to marks a clear error of judgement and is nothing short of wrongdoing.
Last week brought another instance of the BJP's chicanery in choosing to define things selectively. Appearing on Ravish Kumar's NDTV programme, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra sought to ward off the impact of Rahul Gandhi's "5.6-inch chest" remark by raising that old bogey of dynastic succession in the Congress. When questioned on the presence of such dynasts in the BJP and BJP-allied parties, Patra replied, with characteristic bravado, that the Congress is the only party where a scion can directly become vice-president without rising through the ranks. The BJP, he added for good measure, is a "parivar" that also happens to be a party, not the other way round.
Which claim is, of course, entirely disingenuous. Sukhbir Badal, son of Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, is deputy chief minister of that state. Shiv Sena, another long-standing BJP ally, is now a third-generation political party centred on one family. Why, Lalitgate shows that the BJP itself is not impervious to the deft charms of nepotism.
I am not in the least suggesting that dynastic politics and corruption are not problems. Indeed they are nothing short of systemic illnesses that have long plagued our polity. But the BJP cannot claim to define these issues in ways that suit it. After the BJP won last year, commentators spoke of how the BJP had finally arrived and become a truly mainstream party, much like the Congress of yore. It is only natural that the BJP will come to suffer some of the neuroses of this change as well.
Prime Minister Modi can duly claim one-upmanship in a number of departments, including the two issues discussed here. He is, after all, not known to be active in the domestic sphere, so there is little reason for him to look to underhand means. While his campaign, which was built around the cult of his personality, benefitted from this, as prime minister he cannot hope that the public at large will continue to give the BJP the benefit of the doubt on issues like Robert Vadra and corruption. This government will be judged on its own merit, including how far it is willing to go to keep its promise on development and "achhe din". Modi should refrain from attempts to deflect the conversation.