Ram Mandir: The Congress Party's Decision is a Fatal Mistake

Forget religion, principles, and ideology. This is about winning in politics.

Since almost everyone is riveted by tales from the Ramayana, here are some snippets on war, strategy, and morals from the other epic — the Mahabharata. When Arjuna dithers on the battlefield after realising that he has to kill his family members, Lord Krishna delivers the eternal sermon about the victory of Dharma overriding all else in a war.

During the war, Yudhisthira delivers a half-truth to Dronacharya, Lord Krishna plays tricks with the sun so that Arjuna can kill Jayadratha, and Bheema plays foul with Duryodhana before killing him. There was just one goal: to defeat the Kauravas. The Pandavas, encouraged by Lord Krishna, decided that, sometimes, the ends justify the means.

Now, if you hear Rahul Gandhi speak, he seems convinced that he and his party are the righteous warriors battling to defeat “divisive, anti-democratic, fascist” forces represented by the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and Narendra Modi. If you are a supporter of the Congress party, his intent and determination appear to be inspiring. Also, if you are a Congress supporter, his political strategy in pursuit of the aforementioned goal should make you weep and tear your hair in frustration.

Granted this is Kaliyug and there is no Lord Krishna to guide and advise the forever crown prince. Yet, the Congress has no dearth of brilliant, seasoned, and astute minds who could have prevented the party from handing over victory to the BJP on a platter with respect to the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Opinion Polls Give BJP a Simple Majority in 2024, but Not a Massive One

The decision to 'boycott' the consecration ceremony of Lord Ram’s idol at the new temple in Ayodhya on 22 January is as suicidal as Arjuna walking away from the battlefield. Barring a black swan, the author is convinced the Lok Sabha election is a done and dusted affair and that Narendra Modi will equal the record held by Rahul Gandhi’s great grandfather of winning three successive Lok Sabha mandates.

One of the principal reasons for this will be how the Congress has behaved over the Ram Mandir issue. Many analysts and commentators have already spoken and written about its religious aspects and how the temple has become a symbol of the revival of Indic civilisation by even those who don’t count as Hindutva proponents.

The author has nothing really to add to that. But, at the end of the day, it is political, and one needs to look at the political hara-kiri that the Congress party seems bent on committing.

Almost all the opinion polls, including the recent one by CVoter, are giving the BJP a simple, but not a massive majority, in the Lok Sabha elections. Virtually all of them show the BJP not gaining at all in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra, Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Punjab, and Maharashtra.

In most of these states, regional parties successfully thwarted the Modi juggernaut in 2019 and are projected to do the same in 2024. To that extent, one can say that a successful seat-sharing arrangement between the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc partners could ensure that the BJP remains electorally humbled in these states.

This is About Winning in Politics

For any strategist, and there are plenty of them in the Congress, the obvious target for the party and its allies is to reduce the BJP to less than 250 or even 240 seats. If that happens, Modi will no longer be the towering leader he has been since 2014.

He might still end up leading a coalition propped up by 'friendly' opposition parties but the sheen of being invincible that surrounds the prime minister will be gone. That, indeed, is the dream of every Congress leader, worker, and supporter.

But that can happen only if the Congress registers a remarkable turnaround in central, northern, and western India where it is usually involved in direct face-offs with the BJP. For the BJP to come below 240, Rahul Gandhi and his strategists have to ensure the Congress wins about 50 seats in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Haryana, Himachal, Delhi, and Uttarakhand, where the vote share of the Congress in the 2019 elections was between 15 per cent and 35 per cent lower than that of the BJP.

But turning down the invite to the consecration ceremony has made it virtually impossible for the Congress to pull it off. Once again, forget religion. This is about winning in politics.

The formidable organisational machinery of the BJP, backed up by the Sangh Parivar, is already going to town with the single-minded message that the Congress remains anti-Hindu. Now, in these bilateral contests, the minority (mostly Muslim) vote was anyway going to the Congress party. Even a school-going kid would know that the key lies in luring away a big chunk of Hindu voters from the BJP.

Ask anyone: how will 'boycotting' the consecration ceremony as a matter of 'principle and ideology' persuade the ordinary Hindu voter, already galvanised by the Ram rhetoric, to vote for the Congress? What is the number one priority of the Congress: deny Modi a third term or follow Rahul Gandhi on what increasingly appear to be Don Quixote tours?

Clearly, the grand old party has chosen the latter. We will all praise the stamina, determination, and combative spirit of Rahul Gandhi as he travels from Manipur to Mumbai in his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, just as how most of us had praised his first Bharat Jodi Yatra. But then, riding on Ram, Narendra Modi will win another mandate.

(Sutanu Guru is the Executive Director of the CVoter Foundation. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)