Amarinder Singh: The Underutilised Congress Warrior
The Congress, under its president Rahul Gandhi, wants to fight the general elections on the unemployment issue. He says under the Narendra Modi government, lakhs of jobs have been lost. He says while China is generating jobs by thousands, India is seeing negligible job creation.
The jobs debate once threatened to derail the Modi government. Unemployment figures are at a 45-year high. While Modi had promised to create 2 crore jobs a year, fact is that the promise just fizzled out. While Young India has traditionally voted Modi and the BJP, they should ideally be questioning Modi and the BJP when they ask for votes this campaign season.
The reality, however, is something completely different.
Like the recent BW Businessworld-Decode pre-election survey established, jobs have been Modi’s biggest failure, yet the majority is convinced that PM Modi would be re-elected. The answer to this riddle lies in Pulwama and the post-Balakot narrative that has seen an upsurge in the nationalist sentiments across the country.
So, even as the Opposition has stitched state-specific alliances, chances are that they will wither away when faced with the might of a “nationalist Modi”.
Little wonder then that Modi invokes Pulwama and the valour of our jawans in his campaign speeches.
So, how did the Congress cede the nationalist space to the BJP?
When Pulwama happened, a stunned nation vowed retribution. Within a fortnight, Balakot was effected by our Indian Air Force which ventured across the LoC in the Pak territory.
It was said that for 40 lost lives of India, we killed 300 terrorists in Pakistan.
While any official confirmation is hard to come by on this, this is a narrative that has gained ground.
How did the Opposition react to this narrative?
First, Samajwadi Party worthies claimed that Pulwama was “the handiwork of the BJP”.
Later, Sam Pitroda, widely regarded as the father of the Indian telecom revolution, and currently known as a close advisor to Rahul Gandhi, questioned the Balakot claims.
He said as an Indian, “he had a right to raise right questions”.
The BJP latched onto the opportunity and went to town with claims that the “Congress, and the Opposition, bat for Pakistan”.
Nothing could have been more damaging for the Congress.
In a situation like this, how should the Congress have responded?
The Congress, perhaps, forgot that it had, in its midst, a retired Army veteran, now ruling a state, who through his words and deeds, had shown Pakistan its true place.
Immediately after Pulwama, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, while speaking on the floor of Punjab Assembly, had demanded a befitting response to the Pak misadventure, warning the Pak Army and ISI in the same vein.
Amarinder’s rousing speech has been quoted in various platforms and his conduct, and his interventions later showed that this Congress veteran can give any BJP leader a run for his money.
The Congress, ideally, should have fielded Amarinder on Pulwama and national security concerns, especially during the unveiling of its manifesto. More so because the BJP is attempting to take national security centrestage.
This, however, didn’t happen.
An answer to this lies in the fact that the Congress is even today yet to get out of the feudal mindset, and it fails to look beyond the dynasty.
Amarinder is no favourite of Rahul Gandhi. The Congress is not known to promote regional satraps.
Someone with political foresight, however, would have promoted Amarinder to the front row in Delhi, and let him take on the BJP.
This would have also ensured that the two mainstream parties speak in one voice on vital issues of national importance.
