Target Found

Brand Modi will be under attack from the opposition ahead of the Lok Sabha polls

- Soni Mishra

THE JURY IS out on whether Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s hug to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the no-confidence motion debate in the Lok Sabha was spontaneous or pre-planned. Sources close to Rahul insist that it was unscripted, but the idea of hugging Modi as an act of ‘Gandhigiri’ had been on his mind for the last few months. They claim that United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, too, was taken by surprise, and she asked him what he was up to.

Planned or unscripted, it was politics of optics, meant to be captured by the cameras. It was supposed to have an impact, and convey a message. The impact was that it got everyone, including Modi, talking about it. And, the message was that the hug represented a politics that was different from the BJP’s ‘politics of hatred’. Rahul stole Modi’s limelight. So far, Modi has been choosing whom to hug, and for the first time, it was the other way round.

Sounding the bugle for the Lok Sabha elections, Rahul laid down the blueprint of his party’s campaign— Brand Modi will be the target. The idea conveyed by Rahul in his speech was that while Modi had promised a decisive and strong leadership, his reign is marked by an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. He attacked the prime minister for his silence on incidents of lynching and atrocities on dalits, backward classes, minorities and women. He also accused Modi of being anti-poor and caring only for the interests of his industrialist friends. He said Modi had breached set norms in the purchase of Rafale aircraft from France, and the deal smacked of a scam. “Modiji, aap chowkidar nahi, bhagidar hain [Modiji, you are not a watchman, but a partner],” said Rahul, referring to Modi’s earlier pledge to be a chowkidar of the country who would not allow any corruption to take place.