BJP and PM Modi’s ‘Rahul Gandhi phobia’ ranging from ‘ask RG’ to ‘blame RG’

A couple of years ago, Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson Clyde Crasto was on national television with a rather ardent BJP spokesperson who was blaming Rahul Gandhi for everything from here to doomsday.

It was a serious discussion but the anchor could not get a single rational word out of the BJP spokesperson. For example, when Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh asked BJP's Sambit Patra, how many zeroes there would be in a trillion, Patra, who was obviously stumped, said, “Ask Rahul Gandhi!”

Wrong answer – for Rahul Gandhi has a degree in Development Economics from Cambridge University and could have rattled off the zeroes in a trice as even Professor Vallabh, without an Oxbridge degree to his name, did to Patra and reduced him to the joke that those still laughing have never recovered from. Then, again, at another debate on the Ramayana when Vallabh asked Patra to recite a verse from the Ramayana, Patra said, “Ask Rahul Gandhi!”

Once again Patra was forgetting that Rahul Gandhi has a deep study of not just the Hindu scriptures but of at least Indic religions and could have recited the popular opening lines of any chaupai:

Mangal bhavan amangal haari…

Drabahu sudasrath achar bihari .

Ram… Sia Ram.. Sia Ram, jai jai Ram .

Ram… Sia Ram.. Sia Ram, jai jai Ram

It blares from all bhajan mandals almost ad nauseum, doesnt it?

Which obviously Patra didn't know because he insisted he would recite in Sanskrit, not knowing that the chaupais are in Awadhi, courtesy Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas.

Then again BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya called Rahul Gandhi spaced out when he spoke of adopting escape velocity to pull people out of poverty, again not realising that ‘escape velocity' was a popular term among Western economists.

As would become evident to most in later years, Rahul Gandhi, true to his norm, was once again ahead of everybody else in the country even if the BJP IT cell was busy overtime painting him otherwise.

Now as another spokesperson waxed and waned about Rahul Gandhi on this particular show, Crasto who was about to depart for another television channel, asked him, “Mr Mittal, I am curious. What is the weather like at your end in New Delhi?”

The anchor was rattled at the irrelevant question and a startled Sudhanshu Mittal was urged into responding spontaneously, “Why, it is fine, fine weather! Neither too hot, nor too fold. Rather pleasant, in fact.”

"Thank God!” said Crasto, with an exaggerated sigh of relief, even as others looked flummoxed. “I thought your answer would be, blame ‘Rahul Gandhi' !”

As repartees go, it was a great exit line, as even the anchor and the other panelists giggled and could not stop congratulating Crasto later for his comeback line. But as Crasto says it, spokespersons of all other parties are heartily sick of the predictable answer – and blame game – of BJP spokespersons to every issue and question on a variety of subjects, leaving them no room for intelligent debate or to win an argument. “For what do you say to just two words- Rahul Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi!?” he asks, not unreasonably.

Now the BJP has done it again, severally as well as individually. In reply to Rahul Gandhi's statement in Parliament that India was a Union of States, one MP has moved a breach of privilege notice against him and BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya has accused him of attempting a Balkanisation of India.

I really do wish BJP had members who were more erudite and less clownish, making fools of themselves every time they try to take on the Congress and particularly Rahul Gandhi. If only Malviya and Nishikant Dubey (who moved the notice) had been paying more attention in their Political Science classes (or did they go to college at all?), they would have understood that, unlike the United States of America, India is indeed a Union of States - oh dear! Does that confuse the BJP again?

For a party that built the tallest statue in the world – of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel - it is surprising that none of them seem to know what Sardar Patel is known for in India. Did he or did he not unite and integrate various small and big kingdoms run by Rajahs, Maharajahs, Nawabs and Sultans into one integrated whole? Did or did not Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir at first refuse to integrate with India? And did or did not Pakistan try to annex Kashmir and its Maharajah come running to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to rescue him from the attack?

Was there or was there not police action against the Nizam of Hyderabad who refused to cede his territory which included not just Telangana but parts of modern-day Karnataka and Maharashtra too? Did or did not the Nawab of Junagadh, who had acceded to Pakistan, flee to Karachi when he realised his territory was surrounded on all sides by India, so that Junagadh began to face food shortages and he was in danger of becoming victim to food riots in his territory? And did or did not 99 percent of the people then vote to unite with India?

All of this was just one chapter in my Political Science text book but I clearly remember in the class on the comparative study of the various Constitutions, our Political Science professor telling us that there was “only one thread that held India together" and that thread was the Constitution. Because India was a diverse conglomerate of states, cultures, languages, regions, religions, tribes, ethnicities, castes and creeds. But it was the Constitution - and Constitution alone - that gave everyone equal rights to every resource, material or otherwise, in the country.

And if the BJP men had been studying the Constitution more and Manusmriti less or been less obsessed with Rahul Gandhi and more with what binds us all together, they would have known that it is their 'Hindi, Hindu Hindustan' policy and not Rahul Gandhi that threatens to Balkanise India.

But why go that far? If they had only bothered to study Narendra Modi's speeches as chief minister of Gujarat, they would have known how dear he held federalism before he became the Prime Minister of India.

They would then have been trolled less by the common people who photo-copied the Constitution of India to educate yokels about what really constituted India. They would have known Rahul Gandhi had once again got it right and knows India better than the RSS, BJP or Narendra Modi! They would have known they cannot equal Rahul Gandhi whether on Covid, the economy or even the Constitution of India. Poor, poor BJP. I do feel sorry for them, being bested by everyone from Clyde Crasto and Gourav Vallabh to Rahul Gandhi. How nightmarish for them.

(The writer is Consulting Editor, National Herald, Mumbai)