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National News: Almost 24 hours after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi wrote an Op-ed in a national daily where he criticized the corporate culture and the fact that there was a monopoly and he spoke about the East India Company, a clarification came from the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha.
“I am pro-Jobs, pro-Business, pro-Innovation, pro-Competition. I am anti-monopoly. Our economy will thrive when there is free and fair space for all businesses,” said Gandhi after criticism over his column.
As many from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), especially those from royal families like Diya Kumari and Jyotiraditya Scindia did not like Rahul Gandhi’s attack on royalty, the BJP also mounted criticism. The clarification from Rahul Gandhi came in not because he tried to reach out to the BJP, but more because many among his own allies were uncomfortable, particularly the Maha Vikas Aghadi members in Maharashtra.
Maharashtra is to go to polls on 20 November. The state is also called the financial hub of the country. Most of the biggest corporates in the country are seated in the state and the BJP said Rahul Gandhi is against the private sector, something which could hurt the Congress and the MVA as well.
According to top sources, several of the MVA allies, like NCP(SP) and Shiv Sena(UBT), are sore over the column written by Rahul Gandhi as it sent out a message that they were against the corporate sector. Even though Rahul Gandhi may have clarified this, the message which went out to the top brass of the Congress is that this is a perception which can end up hurting the alliance on multiple grounds.
Sources point out that questions have also arisen like how Rahul’s column will be received at a time when the Congress and MVA have been attacking the Modi government for running industries from Maharashtra to Gujarat. Secondly, parties like the NCP and Shiv Sena do not have a problem with the private sector. They know that in a state like Maharashtra, it is very important that the private sector also is taken along and, therefore, they cannot afford to alienate this important as well as influential vote bank, sources added.
There was also uneasiness among the governments in Karnataka, Telangana, and Himachal Pradesh, which are looking at more investments by the private sector.
The whole perception about Rahul Gandhi and the core team running NGO-style politics has hurt Congress a lot many times in the past. Leaders like Kamal Nath and Captain Amarinder Singh-the former Congress leader-are known to have good equations with private sector leaders, and such comments in the past too have made it difficult for them to convince the private sector that they must keep on investing in Congress-ruled states.
And, in fact, the genesis of the G 23 and one of the problem areas with many leaders in the Congress with Rahul Gandhi’s strategies for both 2019 and 2024 was that his constant attacks on the private sector and calling out the Prime Minister is something which boomeranged on the Congress. In fact, Congress leader Anand Sharma and his letter to the top Congress leaders at one point in time made it clear that this as a political strategy and campaign had just not clicked.
Several corporate-friendly leaders within the Congress and the MVA feel that Rahul Gandhi should have gone slow and that timing was wrong. The perception which has been built after the column is also something which will end up harming the MVA.
One criticism Rahul Gandhi and his team have often faced is that whereas Sonia Gandhi thinks of running a Left-oriented NGO kind of politics in a country like India where private sectors at large employ millions, he believes in running a similar line of politics. This perception hurts the Congress more only.
