BJP has sidelined LK Advani, but has welcomed Adani: Rahul Gandhi

JAIPUR: Rahul Gandhi named the Adani group and talked of “four-five businessmen” in a sharp attack on Narendra Modi and on what the Congress vice-president described as Modi’s backers from big business.
The pitch of the rhetoric, the fact that it came from the Nehru-Gandhi scion and that an industrial group was actually named suggest attacking Modi on his “business links” could be Congress’s new strategy as polls enter home stretch.

During the course of a short election speech in Udaipur, Gandhi said, “ BJP has chucked out Advani and brought in Adani in its race to make one person the Prime Minister of India”. He also attacked, without naming, “fourfive businessmen with whose aid he (Modi) dreams of becoming the Prime Minister.”

Critical references to Modi’s ‘business links’ and ‘backers’ are the second and sharply personal line of attack by Gandhi on Modi. The first was a recent reference to the so-called snoopgate controversy. Thursday’s speech by Gandhi also referred to that controversy.

AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal had made similar Advani-Adani remarks against Modi. But anticorporate rhetoric is a regular feature in AAP’s rhetoric. It is extremely rare for major leaders of national parties to name business houses directly in campaign speeches. Even attacking businessmen for backing a party or a leader is a relative rarity.

That Gandhi chose to ignore these conventions suggest he and Congress leadership may have decided to open a new line of attack on Modi.

That large sections of India Inc have been enthusiastic about Modi and disappointed with Congress is no secret. That the Modi campaign, including its advertising spend, has seemed better funded than Congress’ has also been apparent to political observers.

ET had reported on April 7 that BJP’s ad volumes across TV, radio and online have been 50% higher than that of Congress.

Gandhi’s critique of business houses backing Modi becomes more significant given this context.

Even more significantly perhaps, Manish Tewari, Congress national spokesperson, had told ET on April 2that India Inc is only backing Modi and that Congress was a victim of ferocious corporate rivalry.

Tewari had called Elections 2014 a “Rockefeller” moment in Indian politics, meaning industry backing for Modi was similar to US businesses picking winners among politicians at a time the Rockefellers were America’s most powerful business house. Gandhi naming Adani and alleging other businessmen were backing Modi is a critique in the same vein.

The national spokesperson’s comments, followed on Thursday by Congress’s star campaigner attack on Modi-business links may open a significant new front in political campaigning.

In the Udaipur speech, Rahul Gandhi spent little time on his familiar theme of welfare schemes and empowerment.

His launching a direct attack on the Adani group as a ‘Modi-backer’ took even local Congressmen by surprise.

Many present at rally said both the content and the intensity of the speech were unexpected.

Gandhi’s other attack – on ‘snoopgate – was equally combative. “Despite the BJP making claims about (being committed to) women’s empowerment, in a state ruled by it, women have to face harassment.

For snooping over one woman, an entire government leaves its job and stalks her,” Gandhi said.