Is Rahul Gandhi's Vision Of India A Challenge To BJP? | The Big Fight Feb 5, 2022
Rahul Gandhi's stirring speech in Parliament earlier this week , where he spoke about his idea of India, in it, he spoke about India's federal identity, while that's nothing new but by raising the issue of states having primacy with their own independent identities may seem to suggest that Rahul Gandhi was trying to position the Congress party as a natural ally and representative of state parties. Is Rahul Gandhi's vision of India a challenge to the BJP?
Opinion: Reading Between The Lines Of Rahul Gandhi's Speech https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/rahul-gandhi-via-speech-shoots-for-southern-appeal-2747220 Aunindyo Chakravarty February 04, 2022
By 2004, when Rahul Gandhi became an MP, the balance of power had shifted to a certain extent. If the Congress emerged as the single-largest party, the role played by the regional elites of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra was not insignificant. This would later show up in the rise of regional capital from Andhra Pradesh and its country-wide spread during the UPA years - GMR, GVK, Lanco, to name a few. Yet the centralising tendencies of the Congress 'High Command' meant that it tried to disempower regional leaders, weakening local units of the party, in the process.
Today, Rahul Gandhi recognises there may be a space to unite the interests of regional elites from outside the Hindi-speaking belt who have seen a loss of importance as a handful of business houses have taken control of almost all sectors. He is betting on the potential for disquiet amongst regional capital in the face of the rise of Zaibatsu-Chaebol-type mega-conglomerates. Regional elites understand that they need a voice at the centre to reverse this process.