Budget Session | How Rahul Gandhi has rattled BJP with his new-found narrative

Precise and prescient, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s reply to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address, on Monday (February 3), marked a huge departure from his meandering interventions in Lok Sabha in the past.

For once, the Congress leader did not succumb to his penchant for political philosophy to contrast his party from the ruling BJP. Instead, what he offered was a balanced, structured and powerful juxtaposition between the vision he believes would take India forward and the one he felt was stalling the country’s progress under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime.

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Competing with China

Rahul spoke of the imperatives of amping up India’s production (read: manufacturing) capabilities, stressing that globally there were “four technologies driving change in mobility – electric motors, batteries, optics and Artificial Intelligence”. Making a strong pitch for an India that can compete with China in each of these areas, the Lok Sabha LoP slammed the Modi government for pursuing policies which, in his view, will not harness the country’s full potential.

At once charitable and sarcastic, Rahul commended Modi for coming up with ‘Make in India’, which he called a “good concept” but added that the program “failed”. To prove his point, Rahul brandished his phone and said it was wrong to say that India was ‘making mobile phones’ when all the country was doing was “assembling them using parts imported from China”.

Rahul contrasted India’s failure to get on board the revolution that was sweeping the world in manufacturing with how, during the Congress government led by his late father Rajiv Gandhi, she responded in the mid-1980s to the computer revolution. “We decided clearly on the development of software, and we rode the wave of that revolution,” Rahul said.

The Congress leader asserted China had realised the need to scale up its production capacity “way back” and then went on to slam the Centre saying, “The reason China is sitting inside this country is because 'Make in India' has failed. The reason China is sitting inside this country is because India is refusing to produce, and I am worried that India is going to give up this revolution to the Chinese once again.”

Striking a raw nerve

Rahul’s stress on scaling up India’s production capabilities was meant to reinforce what he has said on numerous occasions earlier, though not in as lucid terms. The Rae Bareli MP has been persistently critical of the Modi government’s failure to grasp the socio-economic windfall that would accrue to India if the country’s vast demographic dividend was assiduously harnessed to make her a world leader in production.

On Monday, the LoP explained this in terms that perhaps hit the regime where it hurts the most. Rahul suggested that Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar would not have had to be dispatched to the USA to “get our prime minister invited to the US President's coronation” if the world saw India’s realising her potential. The quip triggered instant protests from the Treasury Benches and, later in the day, a rebuttal from Jaishankar, claiming that Rahul’s comments “damage India” abroad. Clearly, the LoP’s message had struck a raw nerve.

Rahul asserted India’s strategic partnership with the US should focus on how the two countries “can work together to take advantage of this revolution. “India is as important as the US for the simple reason that they cannot build an industrial system without us. The Americans simply cannot do what India can do because their cost structure is much more expensive than ours. We can build things that the Americans would never imagine,” he added.

Also read: Where are Dalits, tribals in Budget-making process? Rahul's poser to FM

Failure to create jobs

Rahul also spoke at some length on AI, asserting that Artificial Intelligence without data is “absolutely meaningless”. “If we look at data today, one thing is very clear. Every single piece of data comes out of the production system in the world. The data used to make phones, electric cars, and electronics is owned by China. And the consumption data is owned by the USA. In China, the consumption data is owned by China, but in India, companies like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and X, they own our consumption data,” he said.

Clearly, what Rahul was drawing at with each of these examples was yet another issue over which he has repeatedly slammed the Modi government for the past decade – its inability to create jobs. “I would like to tell all youngsters of this country that a revolution is taking place. The world is transforming. At the heart of the change that is taking place, we are moving from the world of internal combustion engines to the electric motor. We are moving from petrol to batteries, to wind, solar, potentially nuclear energy. Our entire way of mobility is changing. This will change every single thing – warfare, medical treatment, education, how we eat and everything,” he said, indicating that steps to scale up India’s capabilities in these areas would inevitably generate employment too.

Constitution & caste census

Of course, Rahul’s speech wasn’t all about electric batteries and AI or where about where India stands against China and the US in this competition. The Congress leader also spoke about his pet subjects – the need for a caste census and to protect the Constitution against alleged assaults from the BJP.

He spoke of the lack of a level playing field to Opposition parties in elections, quoting examples of dubious additions and deletions of voters in Maharashtra ahead of the state’s Assembly polls late last year and how these had somehow always proved advantageous to the BJP. He also hinted at skipping the impending meeting of the selection panel, comprising the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister and the Lok Sabha LoP, that will name the next Chief Election Commissioner once the incumbent CEC, Rajiv Kumar, demits office later this month, saying he saw “no point” in attending a meeting where he would be presented with a fait accompli by Modi and Amit Shah.

However, this outright political attack at the BJP found a mention only towards the end of Rahul’s speech. By focusing through the bulk of his intervention on substantive issues, which, in his view, should have found a mention in the President’s Address to the joint sitting of Parliament last week, Rahul craftily used the occasion to demolish an accusation that has often come his way – that he has nothing other than criticism, or even pessimism, to offer.

Also read: Delhi polls: Behind Rahul’s barbs at Kejriwal lies Congress’ resolve for revival

Statesmanship on display

By turning his chance to speak on the Motion of Thanks into a platform to present what he said wasn’t just his but the wider INDIA bloc’s view for the country, Rahul outlined an alternate vision of policy-making that stood in stark contrast to the many glitzy promises Modi has made over the past decade without being able to adequately address India’s growing unemployment crisis.

That he did so while also conceding that like the NDA of today the Congress-led UPA regime too had failed on the employment generation front, Rahul also showed a statesmanship that is often obfuscated by his innate dislike of Modi and the RSS-BJP combine’s brand of politics.

Leaving the BJP rattled – the party now wants large chunks of his speech expunged from parliamentary records – was an added bonus for Rahul. He can next go to town pugnaciously building further upon his new-found narrative, which weaves within it the burning issues of today – employment generation, ensuring India’s progress, competing with super powers such as the US and China, and, of course, the caste census and the Constitution - while asserting Modi has no answers on these.