By now, we are all used to the Congress party leaders crediting the Gandhi family for victories and blaming the regional leaders for their defeats. It is understandable why they are forced to do this. However, it is baffling that certain newspapers, that claim to be brave, daring, unbiased and whatnot, also willingly resorted to this same argument. Just to shield the Gandhi family.
The Congress party lost in Rajasthan (RJ), Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Chhattisgarh (CG) in the just concluded elections to these states. The Hindu, in a great show of loyalty towards the Gandhi family, asks us – Did overconfident regional leaders in the Hindi heartland pay no heed to Congress top brass?
We are told by the author that in these three states, “heavyweights took independent decisions often ignoring the high command”. Are we to seriously believe there are people in Congress who are capable of ignoring the Gandhi family and making decisions? The author cites the example of Kamal Nath cancelling an I.N.D.I Alliance meeting in Bhopal. Are we to believe that Rahul Gandhi had no role in the cancellation of such a meeting? However, in my opinion, the best argument by the author was about the CG election. He writes that “Though the AICC did replace over 20 MLAs to beat anti-incumbency, Mr Baghel could not effectively counter the allegations of corruption against his government by the BJP”.
Cute, no? The Gandhi family thought their job ended with replacing MLAs. The job of winning the narrative is on the CM only though. Imagine if Congress had won. The same author would have written how the Gandhi family played a master stroke by replacing 20 MLAs!
This article is not the only place where The Hindu has given us pearls of wisdom. Their editorial on the results of these elections was even better! We have been told that the victory was because the BJP’s campaign was “laced with communal propaganda” and therefore “had a more effective outreach to subaltern segments”.
I like the choice of phrase – subaltern segments. It’s a posh way of insulting the intelligence of the voters. In this particular case, The Hindu is arguing that the voter chose BJP’s communal agenda over Congress’s caste agenda. In its entire (long) editorial, The Hindu makes no mention of governance-based reasons on why the voters were vexed with Congress in RJ and CG where it was in power; and why they didn’t see Congress as an alternative in MP where BJP has been in power for nearly 2 decades now. We are told that Ashok Gehlot is so awesome that even though he lost the election he prevented a complete washout!
And just in case you forgot that they told you that the BJP won because of Hindutva, they repeat it once again in their (long) editorial. This time, they accuse women, youth and tribal communities of falling prey to “Hindu identity politics”. I wonder what wrong the men did, to not get this honour!
The editorial is severely upset that the caste census idea of Rahul Gandhi did not resonate with the voters. The editorial takes up a lot of space and conveys very little. When you separate the wheat from the chaff, it is baffling how The Hindu always ends up arguing that BJP’s victories are always because of Hindutva and nothing else really matters. How they try to find solace in the performance of the Congress party is also very touching. Their front-page banner story also highlighted how despite losing, they had their vote share intact!
I hope the Gandhi family realises how faithful the editors and owners of The Hindu are towards them and make such great efforts to make them look good. The effort the writers at The Hindu put up in finding new phrases and words to describe their disgust towards the voters is really praiseworthy! They have been resorting to the same argument ever since the 2014 Lok Sabha victory changed the political landscape of India. It’s been more than 9 years, but they are yet to get out of the shock!
