India’s political landscape is undergoing a “tectonic shift” following this month’s surprise election results and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will “struggle” to survive, the country’s most prominent opposition politician, Rahul Gandhi, has argued.
“New space has opened up in the Indian political system,” Gandhi told the Financial Times in his first interview since elections saw the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lose a majority for the first time since Modi came to power in 2014. “There has been a tectonic shift in Indian politics.”
Modi was sworn in last week to become India’s first three-term prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru, but Indian political analysts have questioned the stability of his coalition, saying it is the weakest in a decade and that the BJP will have to rely on smaller allies to stay in power.
The election results gave the opposition Indian Union, led by Mr. Gandhi’s Indian National Congress party, a much better performance than expected, winning 234 of the 543 seats in the lower house of parliament to the 293 of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, and put Mr. Gandhi, who is widely expected to be named leader of the opposition in the new parliament, back at the center of Indian politics.
“Their numbers are so fragile that the slightest disturbance could topple the government,” Gandhi said. “Essentially, one of their allies will have to pivot.”
Gandhi claimed there was “huge discontent” within the Modi camp and that there were “people in the camp who are in touch with us”, but did not provide details.
During the election campaign, Modi sought to exploit religious tensions, calling India’s large Muslim minority “infiltrators” and claiming that his Congress-led government would abandon jobs and other “reservations” reserved for lower-caste Hindus.
But Mr Gandhi’s camp has won votes among Dalits by exploiting fears that the BJP will use its majority to amend the constitution to deprive them of affirmative action benefits.
“In this election, Indians have rejected the idea that you can spread hatred and anger and reap the rewards,” said Mr. Gandhi, whose New Delhi headquarters features portraits of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi as well as his great-grandfather, grandmother and father, former prime ministers Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
“And that’s why the coalition will struggle,” he added. “What worked for Narendra Modi in 2014 and 2019 is not working now.”
Mr Gandhi also argued that on a more level playing field, the opposition Indian Union would have won a majority “without a shadow of a doubt”. Ahead of the vote, Mr Gandhi and his allies condemned the Modi government’s crackdown, which included jailing two state leaders and freezing some of the Congress’ bank accounts.
“We fought with our hands tied… and the people of India, the poor people, knew exactly what they had to do,” he said.
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Indian politics have been dominated by the Congress Party and the Nehru-Gandhi clan for much of its post-independence history, but the party and India’s broader centre-left have been widely seen as forces in decline in recent years, with some critics arguing that the clan’s dominance of the Congress Party is an obstacle to progress.
Gandhi stepped down as party chief after the BJP’s landslide victory in the 2019 elections but remains actively involved in party life and remains one of its most visible figures.
The Congress party, with its hereditary traditions and endemic corruption in past governments, was a prime target for the populist BJP, and Modi attacked Gandhi as “privileged”.ShehzadaModi has been called a “prince” and India’s media, much of which is owned by or relies on his supporters for advertising, has often portrayed him as irresponsible and blundering.
But analysts said opposition lawmakers had taken steps to rebrand their political party in the two elections. Yatraor trekking, first across the country on foot from south to north and then by car from east to west.
Photos of Gandhi interacting with ordinary Indians contrast with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has cultivated a cult of personality not seen in Indian politics since Gandhi’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and who has claimed during the election campaign that Gandhi was sent by God.
“The justice system, the media, the institutional framework, everything was shut down.” [for the opposition]”So we decided that we had to literally, physically do it,” Gandhi said. “Many of the ideas that were successful in this election came out of that march. And they didn’t come from us, they came from the people of India.”
Although the BJP only lost around 1 percent of the vote, Mr. Gandhi and his allies won key seats in the Hindu nationalist party’s northern heartland, including Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
These include Faizabad constituency, where Mr Modi kicked off his election campaign by presiding over the consecration ceremony of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, built on the site of a destroyed mosque.
In his victory speech, Modi said India’s 1.4 billion people had “put their faith” in the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance, but Gandhi argued the ruling party had “suffered a fatal blow” from the voters’ verdict.
“Modi’s ideas and image have been destroyed,” Gandhi said. “A party that has been talking about Ayodhya for the last 10 years has been wiped out in Ayodhya.”
“Essentially what has happened is that the basic structure of the BJP – the idea of creating religious hatred – has collapsed.”
