On a day when the Congress put up a no-show in Nagaland, Tripura and Meghalaya, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi informed the University of Cambridge that Indian democracy is “under pressure and under attack”.
“Negotiations are coming under attack. Here you can see the picture taken in front of Parliament, where a bunch of opposition leaders are taking up the issue and we were just locked up and that’s put up in jail and that happened three-four times and that also relatively violently,” the Wayanad MP said addressing the audience on the topic of “Learning to Listen in the 21st Century”.
He added, “You also heard attack on minority, attack on press. So you got the sense what is happening.” He argued that “the art of listening” when finished persistently and diligently is “very powerful”.
Earlier on Tuesday, he told the MBA students, “We simply cannot afford a planet that doesn’t produce under democratic systems.” “So we need new thinking about how you produce in a democratic environment compared to a coercive environment,” and a “negotiation about this”.
The Gandhi scion’s criticism of the central government comes on a day when the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was negligent in the northeast till 2016, swept Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya — either through individual gains or through allies.
BJP’s Big Win in Northeast
While critics dub the BJP as a ‘pro-Hindu political party’, barring Assam and Tripura (which are Hindu-majority states), the rest of the Northeast has tribals and Christians in majority, many of whom are beef eaters too.
ALSO READ | I Eat Beef, I’m in BJP & There is no Problem With This, Says Meghalaya BJP Chief Ahead of Polls
Since 2016, when BJP saw its first victory in Assam, change has been visible on the ground. It is said that the BJP reaped benefits of the efforts of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who created a dedicated central ministry for the development of India’s northeast. Now, new projects were planned, old ones expedited, more funds released.
According to a report in India Today, in 2015, something significant happened. Young and influential Congress leader Himanta Biswa Sarma, upset with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress, joined the BJP.
A North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) under Sarma, now Assam chief minister, was formed so that the BJP could make inroads into the region while working with regional powers and bring in those not happy in the Congress and other parties, the report stated.
A Status Check for Congress
On the other hand, the Congress has been losing control of every region, poll by poll. As the results for the three northeastern states began on pour in on Thursday, the first reaction from the Grand Old Party was evasive and hinted at damage control.
“The trend normally is that the party which is in power at the Centre wins these polls in Northeast,” said some leaders. This, however, completely obliterated the fact that for the many decades of Left reign in Tripura, the party was never in power at the Centre.
The results come as little surprise as the party, preoccupied with the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, paid scant regard to campaigning in the three states. Rahul Gandhi held only one rally in Meghalaya and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge did about six rallies.
ALSO READ | Did Bharat Jodo Yatra Derail Congress in Northeast? Election No-Show Puts Success of RaGa Venture in Doubt
Apart from them, almost all top leaders of the party were missing from the campaign and those who did turn up, like Shashi Tharoor, did so at the fag-end. In contrast, as usual BJP was aggressive but even the Trinamool Congress (TMC) — which was keen to put up a show in the N-E — did put up a strong campaign with several rounds of campaigning by Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee.
So, what is the takeaway from this dismal show? The Congress has let go of this region and the TMC has emerged as a stronger opposition than the Congress in these areas as in Meghalaya. Once again, a new entrant has upstaged the Grand Old Party like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) did in Gujarat and Goa.
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