Congress personified: Muslim cap,Christian cross, Hindu sacred thread,                    Rudraksha garland. If unfit, Priyanka can inherit the throne

THE ONE THING common between the ruling BJP-led NDA and the Congress party which may lead the ‘Mahagut(ter)bandhan’ to power in the next Lok Sabha polls is the loud-mouthed ‘loose cannons’ making silly, inappropriate statements.

The only difference, however, is that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained dignity by not making  such comments Congress President Rahul Gandhi, himself leads the pack in calling him a thief.  Other sycophants joined him to call Modi a ‘chaiwala‘ (tea seller), ‘unpadh gawar’ (illiterate, uncouth)   and ‘neech aadmi’ (low class man).

There are many fringe elements in the BJP who know that Modi depends on their votes to stay in power and so use no restraint in making silly statements. So it was no surprise that many NDA leaders chose to comment on Rahul appointing his own sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as the party’s General Secretary in charge of East Uttar Pradesh.

While one BJP leader commented about Priyanka’s beauty being not enough to get votes and others about the party being dynastic, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said the appointment was an admission that Rahul himself failed as a political leader and needed another family member to help him out,

Sumitra, who entered politics as a novice housewife who defeated a flamboyant Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister P. C. Sethi in Indore in the 1980s, is a very sober, mature, person. What she said was just what political analysts have always been saying, even before Rahul inherited the party presidentship from his mother who inherited it from her husband who inherited it from his mother who …

The commentators speculated about Priyanka being brought in when Rahul gave ample evidence of immaturity and earned the epithet ‘Pappu’. Her entry into politics was no ‘plunge’. She was always the hidden trump card.

And even an idiot knows that the trump card is always thrown in when the other cards in the pack are weak and defeat appears imminent. Another factor that silenced the parties, all of them started to oppose the Congress, was that ALL of them were themselves dynastic.

Had they not been disparate to cobble an anti-BJP front ‘mahagut(ter)bandhan’ to garner the Muslim votes, which BJP had  already alienated due to its  Hindutuva image, the parties now backing the Congress would have criticized her entry.

The Congress either is not confident of fooling Muslims or does not want to lose the Hindu vote entirely.  So Rahul, Feroze’s grandson and son of an Italian  Catholic, declared himself a  ‘janevudhari’  Brahmin (without a sacred-thread ceremony) and put up posters  declaring Priyanka an incarnation of  Durga, the Hindu goddess. Of course that is secular, as is the caste-based choice of  its candidates.

So these developments reminded me of a blog I had put out last July, which I reproduce here.  It said —

Rahul Gandhi’s tweet saying “I am Congress” might have reminded many of his grandmother Indira Gandhi’s Emergency-days campaign (by her sycophants, apparently at her instance), that “Indira is India”.  (I have heard Dev Kant Baruah, the then Congress President, say it in the Central Hall of Parliament. It  is another mater that he was later thrown out of the party).

That no individual is indispensable, that the party is above the leader and that the nation is above party is what any sane person would agree with.

And yet, in most developing countries individuals have been using their power to make it seem that they alone mattered more than everything. Once in power,  all tend to retain power for all time by hook or crook (often by the latter).

The tendency to be lifetime rulers, common in tribal African nations, seems to have spread now to China and Russia, reminiscent of ancient kingdoms ruled by autocratic kings.

Congressmen, obviously, believe that Indira Gandhi can be succeeded only by Rajiv though he had no political background, Rajiv by Sonia though a foreigner, inexperienced and unwilling and Sonia by son Rahul though he was unfit and more of a comic figure.

In fact a senior Congress leader Mani (neech aadmi)Shankar (chai wala) Iyer declared there could only be two persons considered for party Presidentship – the mother or the son. Despite overt wooing of Muslim vote banks, the grandson of Feroze was declared to be a “Janevudhari” Brahmin (wearing sacred thread) though no thread ceremony (Upanayan) was held. He even invented a gotra.

Had Rahul refused (as his mother Sonia did) the sycophants would have unhesitatingly opted for his sister Priyanka and if she thought going to beauty parlours was more important than the strenuous job of being PM, they would have found great talents in her children. If they too preferred playing to the hard job of PM, Congressmen would not hesitate to enthrone the family’s dog which they would find  miraculous and far superior to any of their own selves.

Even those who believed in the dynastic rule of kings would not have been such great believers in dynasty. All because every one of them belongs to some caste and are bound by caste rivalries, while the Indira dynasty had to no caste as Nehru’s daughter Indira married Feroze, either a Parsi or, as some say, a Muslim.

And these casteists, who demand reservations for Dalit (low caste) Christians and Muslims (who claim to be casteless), call Bharatiya Janata Party communal!

All parties with dynastic leaders now join hands with the Congress. But all want the throne.