It’s almost two months since the 2024 election result was announced, long enough to take a dispassionate view of it. The starting point must be the fact of the BJP losing its majority being interpreted by the Congress as having anointed Rahul Gandhi as the real prime minister.

That Indian politics needs an opposition is not in doubt. What is in doubt, however, is if the Congress should be that opposition, especially if led by Rahul Gandhi.

I reminded a friend of the Indian cricket team’s World Cup win in 1983, which was a fluke. It took very long after that for the team to perform consistently and win a big trophy. The 1985 thing in Australia was the sole exception.

The Congress did better than expected but hardly very well in the general election mainly because of the 30 seats that the BJP lost in UP.

And that was because the Congress successfully spread the lie that the BJP would do away with caste based reservation. It said the Constitution would be amended.

That it would be amended was probably true. But not with respect to reservation. As Modi said with respect to the MGNREGA rumour once, he knew his politics and wasn’t about to undo a political boondoggle. Ditto with reservation.

The Congress is also trying to project Rahul Gandhi as Jack the Giant Killer. Winning 99 seats out of 543 is hardly convincing proof of that.

After all, the BJP won 240 and but for some tactical mistakes it would have won around 290.

If I may revert to 1983, the Congress is like the Indian team and the BJP is like the West Indies then. Look up the stats and you will see how enormous the gap between the two was. They, and all other teams, walloped India repeatedly for a decade after that.

Congress’s bazball approach

It’s obvious now that the Congress has decided to adopt bazball tactics. There’s a new aggression aimed at the BJP that is good to see.

But the difference between actual bazball and this Congress thing is that in cricket bazball is a cold and calculated approach. The Congress and Opposition way, however, is inspired in part by sheer anger at losing power and in part by a terrible fear because they all have something to hide. There’s nothing cold and calculated about it.

Bazball in cricket worked for a while till the opposition came up with a counter. Also, remember, if it worked half the time in T20 games that was considered fantastic. But that percentage in other formats is just plain disastrous. Politics and cricket are patience games. Equally, bazball depends primarily on a good wicket.

It fails on surfaces where the ball doesn’t come to the bat. The BJP will surely fix the wickets soon.

The role of Rahul Gandhi

Finally there’s Rahul Gandhi. He reminds me of many modern IPL batsmen who forget that the bowlers also have skills and that it’s consistency that matters, not a few flashes in the pan.

The problem with Rahul Gandhi is that he has started believing that he is a great mass leader. He is being bolstered by the usual gang of family hangers-on. What he forgets is that of the 232 seats the Opposition alliance won, he can take credit only for 99. Modi on the other hand can take credit for 240 of the BJP’s alliance. That’s the gap and if Rahul Gandhi doesn’t mind it, he will fall in. Does he have the political nous not to fall in? I doubt it very much. He is far too dependent on others. Worse, he has been copying the playbook Modi employed since 2007. But the main difference is that while Modi had only one way to go — up — Gandhi also has only one way to go — down. As a friend who knows French history put it, “Rahul Gandhi has changed his style from being Bonny Prince Charlie and the King over the Water to being the Scarlet Pimpernel and saving Congress Aristocrats from the Jacobin Terror. Either way he’s Ancien Régime stuff.”

But leave all this aside. Forget Rahul Gandhi. Politically he is actually still not very convincing. Instead, ask if a party like the Congress, with no organisation worth the name, and dependent on European ideas of social democracy, can displace the BJP from the public mind?

Can a party that makes minority rights its central platform win over the majority without creating its own minorities of caste and still talk of Bharat Jodo? Fear mongering worked once in one State, UP. But in the even more caste based politics of Bihar, it failed. The Congress needs to ask why. It also needs to ask if India has reached the stage of political evolution where individual rights matter more than group rights. Truth be told no country has. It’s just that the groups are different.

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