BJP overkill: How the party rewarded 'Angry Rahul' for his Lok Sabha drama

Yesterday, Rahul Gandhi shocked the ’nation’ - and by this we mean the national media - when he uncharacteristically rushed into the well of the house along with the rest of his party, demanding a debate on rising incidents of communal violence in the country.

Speaking to astounded reporters outside Parliament later, the Congress vice president was equally provocative. “There is a sense in Parliament that this government is not conducive to discussion. That the voice of only one man counts for anything in this country,” he said, making it clear who he was making a jibe at.

He even went so far as to criticize speaker Sumitra Mahajan. “This is completely one sided partiality, you know”, he said.

But it was not just the media that he shocked. The ruling BJP seemed pretty jolted by the incident as well.

Key leaders from the ruling party practically fell over one another to tell an eager media that Rahul’s new aggressive avatar was merely the desperate strategy of a man witnessing the death throes of his political reputation.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley put it down to a ‘palace coup’ – a sly reference to rising calls for Priyanka to take charge of the Congress party. He mocked Rahul’s charge of censorship, saying, “Some leaders don’t speak at all in the House and then say we are not allowed to speak”.

Day after day, Jaitley said, established leaders of the party were speaking in the House. “It’s an internal compulsion within the party. For that, you need not drag the House or Presiding officer into the debate”.

The Finance Minister added that if Rahul Gandhi wanted to do something, it would be better if he led his own party rather than stage this “contrived aggression”.

An uncharacteristically chatty Jaitley was matched the many other BJP leaders who flocked before television cameras to give more sound bytes. It was an unusual sight for a Modi government that has now become notorious for its media-averse policy.

“Haar ke hangover ko utaarne ke liye inhe jhaad-phoonk karwani chahiye”, said BJP leader Prakash Javadekar. Meanwhile Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu said, “I won’t take anyone’s name, but I am sad at the way Congress is behaving in the Lok Sabha”

Even Home Minister Rajnath Singh stepped into the fray, telling reporters outside Parliament, “The entire country knows that the Prime Minister is neither dictatorial, nor communal. If he had been dictatorial  or communal, then I think people of such a huge country would not have given such a mandate that for the first time in the history of independent India, a non Congress political party has a clear mandate in Parliament."

A Times of India report said that LK Advani had ‘snubbed’ Rahul in Parliament, telling him that the conduct of the opposition in the house was ’not good’.

There is definitely an element of truth to the BJP defense. Rahul Gandhi is facing an internal rebellion in the Congress, and he may well feel threatened by the growing demand for his sister to step in. But the BJP’s eagerness to retaliate – with its biggest guns – was no less revealing.

If Rahul Gandhi and the Congress are as irrelevant as the NDA make out (The Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut witheringly said that rushing into the well of the house was the hallmark of a small party - we’re guessing he’d know best) then why react at all? Why the rush to make full blown statements? And that too from none other than the Finance Minister of the country. When someone of the stature of an Arun Jaitley reacts to Rahul Gandhi, they elevate his remarks, not discredit them.

By choosing to respond, in so many voices, and at such length, the BJP leadership ensured that Rahul got more than his fair share of time in the spotlight. Television channels played his statement on loop, juxtaposed with images of Rahul running into the well of the house and later talking to the media. Images that can only hearten a party cadre looking for some sign of life from its leaders in the wake of the Lok Sabha rout. And how better to cheer Congressmen up than to give their leader the honour of a full-power, full-frontal defense.

As Firstpost’s  Sanjeev Singh so aptly noted ,

Matters of Parliament can be handled by experienced leaders; the real challenge for Rahul lies in getting the party organisation active again. He has to dismantle a coterie of leaders that seem to be controlling the Congress and left it alienated from the rank and file. This is where he just doesn’t seem to be in the mood to do anything.

By richly rewarding his ’theatrics’, BJP may have ensured that Rahul may not have to – at least in the short run.