In an interview where he explains his personal view of how the Congress should approach the 2024 national elections, Manish Tewari, a former Minister of Information and Broadcasting and now the Anandpur Sahib MP, says the party’s key aim should be to ensure a change of government because that is in the wider and deeper interest of India’s democracy.
This was Tewari’s answer to the opening question of the interview, “Should the Congress party’s aim when it fights the 2024 national elections be to deny the BJP 272 seats and thus ensure it can’t form another government or to maximise the number of seats Congress itself wins?’
In a 38-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, where a whole range of issues connected to the sort of strategy Tewari believes the Congress should adopt for the 2024 elections was discussed, Tewari said that what was required was state-level tactical alliances between all the opposition parties, including those that have differences with each other (such as, for example, Aam Aadmi Party, Akali Dal and Congress in Punjab) to ensure a one-to-one fight with the BJP.
This would guarantee that the 60% of the electorate who vote for the opposition are not split and divided by multiple opposition candidates.
Tewari is the first opposition leader who has willingly shared his personal thinking and explained it at considerable length. It would not be fair to summarise it in a precis, and that would not convey the depth and richness of his ideas.
Instead let me give you the list of key questions that were put to Tewari so that you are ready to hear his answers and his arguments in response to those questions.
1) What do you believe should be the Congress party’s aim when it fights the 2024 national elections: to deny the BJP 272 seats and thus ensure it does not form the next government or to maximise the number of seats Congress itself wins? Which of the two?
2) Most people would agree that the best way of defeating the BJP is for the opposition to put up a one-to-one fight in as many seats as possible. In other words, don’t split the 60% who vote for the opposition by putting up multiple candidates. Do you agree with that logic?
3) In which case the answer lies in forging effective alliances between Congress and the regional parties that dominate states like Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana, Orissa, etc. Have you thought of a formula for how this can be done?
4) Let me put to you a suggestion: why doesn’t Congress, the largest opposition party and also the only national opposition party, arrange a meeting with all the other parties and analyse each of the 543 constituencies and say (to quote Shashi Tharoor) “we will give way to you in areas where you are clearly stronger than us and you must give way to us where we are stronger than you”. How do you respond to that suggestion?
5) Let me put to you the implications of this suggestion. It means in some 200 or so seats in states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal, Goa, maybe Karnataka, Congress will put up candidates against the BJP. But in other states like Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra, UP, Congress will have to give way to other parties that are stronger. Are you prepared for that?
6) The second key issue is should the opposition seek to project a single leader and, presumably, prime ministerial candidate or can you fight the election without doing this and by relying on state leaders in their individual states and Congress leaders where Congress is strong?
7) The third issue is what message should the opposition convey in the election? Do you accept that personal criticism of the Prime Minister is likely to backfire whilst a concentrated focus on Adani and crony capitalism has not struck a chord with the Indian people?
8) Do you also accept there are two other issues which are unlikely to unite the Indian voter behind the opposition – Modi’s ill-treatment of minorities and, second, his alleged weak response to China?
9) Doesn’t this mean that the issues the opposition raises must matter to the lives of ordinary people? There’s a whole range of them like unemployment, inflation, education, health, poverty. The trick is to identify the ones that matter in each state. Would you agree?
10) To tackle Modi and the BJP effectively, the opposition also has to have a response to what Modi and the BJP say. If Rahul is a candidate he will be the first focus for them. So wouldn’t it be a blessing in disguise if he can’t stand?
11) In the event he can stand, would it not be necessary for Rahul to make clear he’s not the prime ministerial candidate?
12) The second attack from the BJP is likely to be on alleged Congress corruption. They’ve already claimed in the so-called Congress Files that Congress has looted 4.8 lakh crore from the Indian public over the last 70 years. That message will be repeated a million times during the elections. How will you respond?
13) Before we end this interview let me once again focus on Congress. You don’t have a Working Committee and now it’s said you won’t have one till after the Karnataka elections. Who knows, it could get postponed further. Is this wise or is this a mistake?
14) How important is victory in Karnataka and later in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh? And how much of a setback will it be if the BJP wins instead?
15) Given the powerful speech she made in Delhi on the 26th of March, which people are still praising and talking about, does Congress need to give Priyanka a key role in the campaign?
16) Finally, Rahul Gandhi seems to have made a habit of personal rudeness to journalists who ask awkward questions. He did it in his March 25 press conference and again on April 4. Do you worry that this could give Congress a bad name but also put many journalists off?
Watch the full interview here.