Okay, so a pre-Valentine blast has shifted the debate from Hindu hooliganism to Muslim terror

How Congress is the Congress

Okay, so a pre-Valentine blast has shifted the debate from Hindu hooliganism to Muslim terror. But last week's tamasha over a Bollywood movie has revealed more than the Shiv Sena's lack of political imagination. It has exposed the Congress' doppelganger. In much the same way the BJP's Hindutva core was laid bare.u00a0

In power, and out of it, there were two BJPs. The good BJP, and the bad BJP. Simply put, for the urban Indian middle class, there was the anti-Congress, right-of-centre, pro-middle class party that promised to do things differently. And for the heartlands, there was the loony fringe that worshipped cows and demonised Muslims.

And talked about a Hindu India. This arrangement worked well for sometime, till the party was done in by its own contradictions.
The Congress is clearly at the other end. The favoured party of the minorities, the Congress is pro-poor, pro-reforms,
pro-modernisation, pro-youth, pro-everything-that-would-help-India-make-the-next-big-leap.

But events of the last few days have exposed tendencies similar to the BJP: the Congress also speaks in two voices, trying to appeal to both the sane and the senile.

After threatening to withdraw Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray's security, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said that the Sena-Shah Rukh Khan controversy should be resolved by "mutual understanding". Really now! This is the same Chavan who said taxi derivers in Mumbai should know Marathi.u00a0 Clearly, the party doesn't want to completely lose those that support the 'Maharashtra for Maharashtrians' argument.

It took a Rahul Gandhi to pull Chavan by the ear and make him act. But Chavan's initial hesitance didn't go unnoticed. And this is not the only issue where the party crawled when it should have taken giant strides. From Shah Bano to throwing open the gates of the Babri Masjid, the Grand Old Party has often played to the rogue's gallery.

Take Ashok Gehlot. The Rajasthan Chief Minister often speaks more like a BJP leader than a Congress man. Whether it is opposing 'pub and mall culture' or saying he was against the previous BJP government encouraging "girls and boys walking hand-in-hand in public", Gehlot's moral policing don't gel with Rahul Gandhi's progressive agenda.

So are these instances of individual idiosyncrasies or is there a grand design? We will never know. But very little goes in the Congress without the High Command's nod.u00a0 If so, maybe it's time for a quick rethink. The voter is maturing and fast. Real-speak is the game-changer today, not double-speak. And if Kalavati can turn against the Congress, so can the rest.

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