After Congress 'show' biz, BJP sure of Narendra Modi's star value

NEW DELHI: A newly aggressive Rahul Gandhi holds no fears for Bharatiya Janata Party. At least that's what the main Opposition party's leaders are saying. And, they add, it's clear after Friday's day-long All India Congress Committee session in Delhi that the ruling party has little else up its sleeve that could possibly turn voters in its favour.

The decision not to field the Congress vice-president as the party's prime ministerial candidate was inevitable as Congress has accepted defeat. More than that, the forthcoming election will also mark the end of the Nehru-Gandhi family's primacy in Indian politics, according to BJP.

"The diminishing returns of a dynasty controlling a party are now visible. In 25 years, a Gandhi has not been the prime minister of this country. India, indeed, is changing. The Gandhis can control a party, but not the nation," BJP leader Arun Jaitley said in a post on his Facebook page.

According to BJP, Congress has conceded defeat even before the polls as it has lost its nerve.

Also, Rahul Gandhi has taken himself out of the race as he doesn't want to be directly pitted against BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, goes the reasoning.

Congress has no fire in its belly, says Jaitley

"If there is no prospect of forming a government, why announce Rahul Gandhi as a prime ministerial candidate!" Jaitley wrote. "Congress is losing the will to fight adversity. This was first visible in the Delhi assembly elections... There is no fire in the belly left to fight adversity."

Jaitley also lashed out at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's reference to Modi's past as a tea seller.

"The strength of Indian democracy will be proved when a former tea vendor defeats a dynasty representative," Jaitley said. "Let this be the battle of 2014."

Aiyar had said, "In this...century, Modi will never become the PM. If he wants, we can set up a tea stall for him at the AICC meet."

BJP began targeting Gandhi on Thursday night itself, as it became clear that he wouldn't be named the Congress prime ministerial candidate. The campaign intensified on Friday.

BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said Congress was entering the poll arena without a captain.

"Congress is silent on corruption," he said at a press conference. "He (Gandhi) has asked for three more LPG cylinders. If this was done earlier, Congress might have saved three states," Hussain said, referring to Rahul Gandhi's demand that the quota of subsidised cylinders be raised to 12 a year from nine. Congress lost elections in four out of five states recently.

At BJP's national executive meeting in Delhi on Friday, the reaction came swiftly as the decision became official, with Congress President Sonia Gandhi rejecting the demand to declare her son as the party's prime ministerial candidate.

"Defeat is writ large on Congress' face. Congress can see the writing on the wall," party president Rajnath Singh said at the meeting, according to spokesperson Prakash Javadekar.

Jaitley added to this in similar vein: "It was nervousness in 2004 that kept the dynasty away. It is the prospect of defeat staring in the face, which is responsible for the reluctance to announce Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate in 2014."

Still, some BJP leaders said Rahul Gandhi's projection as prime ministerial candidate would have helped them as it would have drawn parallels with Narendra Modi. In a sense, BJP will now be boxing against a shadow, they said. BJP also retaliated sharply against Sonia Gandhi's accusations that it was playing "divisive" politics.

"Sonia Gandhi tells us we are communal. In whose regime were Sikhs burnt alive? Kashmiri pundits displaced? They party with the Muslim League, which was responsible for Partition. They are friends with Owaisi in Hyderabad. Congress is communal," Javadekar said.

He said the debate was not about secularism, but pseudo-secularism, development, governance and misgovernance.