Opinion Simply spooked
Modi has challenged the opposition to redefine itself. For now, Congress doesn’t seem up to it
It is the party’s prerogative to dispense with a spokesperson but by sacking Shashi Tharoor in the manner that it has, the Congress has raised a few questions. To begin with, what, precisely, is the reason why Tharoor is being punished? Is it only his acceptance of the prime minister’s invitation to be part of the Swachh Bharat Mission? In that case, is the Congress also saying that it is opposed to the Clean India campaign because it is run by Narendra Modi? And if Tharoor’s alleged indiscretion is not just his apparent readiness to be coopted in a campaign that even the Congress cannot be seen to publicly oppose then what is it? The party has not just failed to communicate clearly why it has seen it fit to remove one of its more articulate spokespersons at a time when it needs to marshal its resources to stay in the public argument. By refusing to give Tharoor a hearing, it has also sent out a rather dispiriting signal about inner party democracy, or its absence.
The really sobering questions raised by the episode, however, go beyond the man visibly at the centre of it. They have to do with the Congress’s fixation on, and its evident cluelessness in dealing with Modi. Ever since he became prime minister, Modi has sought to occupy and monopolise centrestage by a clever and imaginative mix of strategies — among others, by plucking the low-hanging fruit the UPA could not rouse itself to go after, by appropriating many of the UPA’s programmes and even icons and making them sound like his own, by coming up with unexceptionable and “can do” projects with a wider resonance. In the face of these strategies, the old oppositional style that consisted mainly of just saying “no” is not the best option. But because the Congress is yet to think through a way to be oppositional in the time of Modi, it embarrasses itself by confronting the challenge he poses in rote, ill-thought-through ways.
On the day it removed a spokesperson on the vague charge of “praising” Modi, it also petitioned the EC against the repeat telecast by Marathi channels of Modi’s Madison Square Garden speech — which can easily be accessed on YouTube. At the end of a campaign for Maharashtra in which Modi aggressively took the initiative and seemed to set the agenda, the Congress’s complaint showed it not as a serious party of the opposition, but as one that is simply spooked by Modi.
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