While the Congress is still in the throes of a debate on whether or not it should “demonise” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Grand Old Party can take some lessons from two chief ministers — Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal and West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee — who have tactfully recalibrated their strategy once they realised the futility of launching unnecessary personal attacks against the PM.
Both Kejriwal and Banerjee have been staunch Modi critics and would never let go of any opportunity to pillory the Prime Minister. Name-calling was the order of the day as the two chief ministers would take on Modi on a regular basis. Kejriwal had even gone as far as to charge that Modi was plotting to assassinate him.
However, there has been a perceptible change in the attitude of the two chief ministers following Modi’s massive victory in the last Lok Sabha election. Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party suffered huge electoral losses in these polls while the Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress got a wake-up call in West Bengal with the Bharatiya Janata Party making major gains in the Lok Sabha elections. A resurgent BJP poses a serious threat to Banerjee in next year’s assembly polls.
After considerable internal debate and discussion, the two leaders have decided to go in for an image makeover.
Of the two, Banerjee took some time to drop her combative stance. She has been persuaded to change tack by her new election strategist Prashant Kishor who has advised the West Bengal chief minister to focus on a public outreach programme instead of wasting her energy and time on castigating Modi. The change in the attitude of the two chief ministers is also spurred by fears that a predatory BJP is looking to poach MLAs from their parties with an eye on the forthcoming assembly polls in Delhi and West Bengal.
The two chief ministers have understood that no purpose would be served by launching personal attacks against Modi who, in the public view, can do no wrong. On the other hand, their constant criticism gives Modi an opportunity to play the victim and actually enhances his public image.
Consequently, Kejriwal lost no time in supporting the Modi government’s recent decision to abrogate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two Union Territories. This is despite the fact that Kejriwal has been battling the Centre for full statehood for Delhi.
At the same time, the Delhi chief minister has refrained from taking on the Modi government for its handling of the economy even as official figures paint a grim picture of the country’s economic situation.
Maintaining a studied silence on this subject, Kejriwal publicly stated that he was confident Modi would be able to turn around the economy. He also never passes up an opportunity to thank the Modi government for expediting the clearance of his government’s development proposals.
Kejriwal is currently preoccupied with the implementation of his party’s promises made to people, particularly since the next Delhi assembly election is less than six months away.
Similarly, Mamata Banerjee is no longer on the warpath with the Modi government. Instead, she has embarked upon a mass contact campaign through the ‘Bolo de Didi’ programme (devised by Kishor) where people are encouraged to speak directly to the chief minister about their complaints and demands.
The purpose of this exercise is to get feedback from the ground which will then enable the Trinamool Congress and the state government to take corrective measures and meet the expectations of the electorate. Like Kejriwal, Banerjee has also been keeping a low-profile. Instead of lashing out at the Modi government on every issue as would be expected of a firebrand like Banerjee, her response to matters relating to the BJP like the Unnao rape case has been unusually muted.
Though it is early to say if the change in Kejriwal and Banerjee’s strategy will pay dividends, the two leaders cannot be faulted for their attempts to reconnect with the people, to redress their grievances and to propagate the achievements of their respective governments.
Herein lies a lesson for the Congress which is still caught up in an internal debate on how it should take on the Modi government. Senior leader Jairam Ramesh’s recent remark that the Congress “stop demonizing Modi” has predictably met with howls of protest from his colleagues though there is an all-round agreement in the Congress that Rahul Gandhi’s personalized campaign against Modi in the last Lok Sabha election backfired badly.
Since then, there have been pious suggestions that the Congress should go to the people with their own vision and take up issues which are affecting them adversely. In this connection, Sonia Gandhi has exhorted the party rank and file to launch a countrywide agitation to highlight the suffering of the common man because of the current economic slowdown. But the question is: is anybody listening?