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New Delhi, August 6, 2023

In case his membership is not restored preventing him from speaking on the motion, Gandhi is bound to get public sympathy as he will be seen a victim in popular eyes.

Dr.Satish Misra

Staying of conviction in a defamation case by the country’s highest court on August 4 of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi paving the way for restoration of his membership of the Lok Sabha has apparently upset the Modi-Shah game plan to keep him out of the electoral politics and deny him representation in either of the two houses of Parliament.   

But wheels of justice that invariably grind slow but sometimes effectively have turned political fortunes upside down by sending him back to the Lok Sabha as a serious challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi led Bharatiya Janata Party that has been controlling levers of power since 2014. At the same time, court’s verdict has posed a dilemma to the ruling party. 

While the Supreme Court’s order has come well within time to enable Rahul Gandhi to participate in the INDIA sponsored no-confidence motion that has been scheduled to start from August 9 but whether his membership of the lower house is restored by then or not depends of the intention rather pleasure of the office of the Lok Sabha Speaker that ensured the disqualification of his membership with an alarming alacrity after a session court in Surat convicted him for two years on March 24 this year. The disqualification order was issued within 26 hours of the Session Court’s verdict. 

In either case whether he is made to participate or not, the outcome is going to be very interesting. If his membership is restored enabling him to speak on the no-confidence motion, Rahul Gandhi’s speech will attract national and international attention apart from hitting the NDA government hard in general and Prime Minister Modi in particular of the abdication of responsibility in stopping the mayhem and dishonouring of women in the state of Manipur that began on May 3.

Gandhi along with other leaders of the INDIA alliance are bound to expose all tall claims of the Prime Minister who has sought people’s mandate in the name of Double Engine governments which will ensure faster developments. Double engine governments in general and the BJP governments in Manipur and Haryana in particular where communal riots broke out on July 31. 

In case his membership is not restored preventing him from speaking on the motion, Gandhi is bound to get public sympathy as he will be seen a victim in popular eyes.             

Irony is that today’s ruling establishment and earlier the saffron establishment despite using all fair and foul means and deploying every possible overt and covert method to push young Gandhi into insignificance rather ineffective by keeping him on margins of politics, has helped him emerge from the ashes like a phoenix to haunt and hunt leaders whose ideological design and machinations to destroy the Idea of India inherited from Mahatma Gandhi led freedom struggle that became enshrined in the country’s Constitution.

In full knowledge that Rahul Gandhi is a threat to their set goals and objective of turning India into a majoritarian state where minorities have either no rights or very limited rights, the saffron camp armed with its ideology of Hinduatva had marked him quite early and had prepared an elaborate plan called ‘Pappu’ to project him as an nincompoop in popular perception for which millions were spent. Crores of Rupees were spent for ‘pappufication’ of Rahul Gandhi for which a large force of Sangh followers were used on several social media platforms and WhatsApp groups. Fake campaigns were launched to malign him and discredit him. In this campaign, some Congress leaders were also involved.       

Sinister plan began to lose efficacy as the BJP government at the Centre and state governments failed to deliver many promises and unemployment continued to grow and prices kept on rising. In the gloomy background, Rahul Gandhi remained steadfast on the path of doing everything within his might to protect the Idea of India. With his commitment to truth and his firm opposition to force of hatred that were out into open to enlarge the communal divide, Rahul Gandhi emerged as a potential threat to PM Modi.

But what indeed shook the very foundations of the Modi regime with all its ugliness manifested though the shameless use of state apparatus to haunt, harass and harangue the opposition and its leaders was the over five months long Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Srinagar which increased his status and reach with the common people.

Naming of the opposition alliance of 26 parties INDIA has rubbed salt on many a wounds of the government which is being reflected in PM Modi’s reactions and words that he is using with vehemence to run down the alliance.

While rise in his stature and his sustained efforts to reach out to common people manifested through his meetings with drivers, vegetable vendors, motor mechanics and others has strengthened the moral of the Congress party, it is also going to help in a big way the INDIA alliance.

A sustained campaign in the columns of the big Godi media and through whispers is already underway to weaken the alliance by suggesting that Rahul Gandhi has prime ministerial ambitions and thus a threat to the leaders of other parties in the coalition.

Very few understand him and know his personality as he has till now proved that he is not after any office. If prime ministerial chair was his ambition, he could have had it in 2009 when Dr Manmohan Singh would have vacated the chair without any hesitation. 

His commitment to defeat the BJP government that is anti-people and devoted to destroy the Constitution and divide the country on communal lines is far more earnest then the prime minister chair.       

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