Modi's Rahul-Sized Headache

For the first time, Modi is eyeball to eyeball with his bete noire, sitting a few feet across him.

Given the last 10 years, a confrontation between them was unavoidable, inevitable, points out Saisuresh Sivaswamy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was at his trenchant best -- or worst -- in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, when he taunted Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, in response to the latter's first speech to remember in his long stint as MP. (Come on, go back and recall which of Gandhi's speeches in Parliament comes to mind. Any? None?)

That's the point. Modi and the BJP may have derived peculiar satisfaction in excoriating Gandhi specifically and his party generally, but truth be told, Gandhi had hardly done anything of note in Parliament.

Till Monday, when in a white T-shirt that showed off his biceps to good effect, he made probably the longest, and most hard-hitting speech of his life, from across the aisle to the prime minister and the rest of the Treasury benches.

Such behaviour, we knew, will not go unresponded, and it did not.

Modi began in what seemed to be a conciliatory note, listing out his government's various achievements, before shifting gears and going on overdrive against Gandhi.

He even appealed -- but more in the nature of an order -- to Speaker Om Birla, who seemed to be enjoying Modi's barbs, to take action over what he said was a conspiracy to derail parliamentary democracy.

Don't be surprised if the headlines tell us that such action has indeed been taken.

So, between the red and blue corners, who has come off best?

That depends on who you ask.

A neutral observer would say, going by the short first session of the 18th Lok Sabha, get ready for more skirmishes between the Treasury benches and Opposition.

Neither side is going to yield, and what will be affected is the House's business.

Conducting the House's business is the government's remit; disrupting it is the Opposition's intent.

Unless, of course, saner counsel prevails, but there is no such entity in sight now.

The current impasse is inevitable, for it springs from the BJP's, no, Modi's electoral reverse, when he failed to lead his party over the majority mark. Leave aside the 400-seat target he set, he couldn't even manage to cross the party's 2019 seat count.

He may have formed the government with the help of allies, but it is a vastly diminished government and a vastly diminished Modi.

He may not have admitted to it; but it is there to see, in the retention of most of the seniors in familiar jobs, extensions to key officials, etc, the most critical of which was the Lok Sabha Speaker. Continuity, they call it, but it is more like ringfencing the government from any sudden impulse from within rocking the boat.

This retains the loyalists, but does nothing to silence the enemy forces baying outside the castle walls.

If you go back over the 10 years of Modi rule, and even beyond, to his pre-election campaign in 2014, one thing remains constant through a churn of ideas he threw at the nation.

And that is the mockery and belittling of the Congress party's heir apparent Rahul Gandhi.

With boost from the BJP IT cell and the troll factory, this campaign of calumny and character assassination was made viral till it seemed that the entire nation believed in the baloney.

The electoral dividend was there to see, in the Congress's electoral nadir of 44 Lok Sabha seats in 2014.

This became a self-fulfilling prophecy (Pappu can't lead, Saala!), and the continuing campaign of vilification produced a similar, only marginally better, electoral outcome in 2019.

Two questions stem from this.

One, has any political leader in independent India been subject to such vile propaganda over such a long time?

The answer is obvious, no.

Two, what does it say of the victim of such constant abuse and worse that he is not only standing, but is taking more blows on the chin and continuing to fight?

The answer to me is obvious again, but I leave it to the readers to answer as per their convictions.

The point is, Modi didn't just pick on Rahul Gandhi all those years ago.

He had a reason to do so.

Among all the political parties ranged against the BJP, he knew the Congress alone had the history, the organisation, the national spread and the members to rival the Sangh Parivar. History taught in schools tell us that the Congress party led the freedom movement, not the BJP or its predecessors and forebears. So how do you fight such an outfit?

By turning its leadership into an object of ridicule.

Art of war: Kill the king to defeat his army. For threat exists only so long as the king is alive.

Cut to the present: The Gandhi family is the idea that keeps the Congress together. Destroy them politically, and the party implodes.

Which strategy is what was being executed for the last 10 years of the Modi Sarkar, and it seemed to be paying off.

So when and how did the tide turn?

Was it the Bharat Jodo Yatra that showed a different side to the Gandhi scion, told the nation that bandey mein hai dum?

Or was it the constant harassment he was subject to with court cases, tax disputes, eviction from home, Parliament, the heckling that wouldn't stop, that led to people question why the entire officialdom was dead keen on silencing one voice in Parliament?

Was it both, or something else altogether?

Whatever it was, Modi knew the challenge posed by a resurgent Rahul and a Bharat that is far from Congress-mukt.

The worst news for him from the recent elections was not that the BJP did not get a majority on its own -- purely as aside, since when has the BJP needed an elected majority to form a government?

The worst news was that the Congress had won enough seats to lay claim to the Leader of Opposition's post, there being no doubt who it will pick for the office now that Sonia Gandhi had moved to the House of Elders.

For the first time, Modi is eyeball to eyeball with his bete noire, sitting a few feet across him.

Given the last 10 years, a confrontation between them was unavoidable, inevitable.

The fiery speeches of the last two days in the Lok Sabha are only a soupcon. The main course is yet to be served.

If it was simply a clash of two personalities, it wouldn't prolong.

But what we are witnessing is a clash of ideas that have no meeting point. The 18th Lok Sabha is likely to remain hostage to this clash.

Both the prime minister and the Leader of he Opposition have powers as well as responsibilities.

Will the execution of their collective responsibilities be overshadowed by a demonstration of their individual powers?

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com