Simply final 12 months, Rahul Gandhi and the once-powerful celebration he led, the Indian Nationwide Congress, gave the impression to be on the ropes and little risk to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s consolidation of political energy.
Congress had not been a aggressive think about nationwide elections in years, successful fewer and fewer votes every time Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Celebration was elected. And Mr. Gandhi himself had been convicted on a slander cost and barred from holding a seat in Parliament.
However on Tuesday, Mr. Gandhi and a broad opposition coalition led by his Congress celebration registered a far stronger displaying than anticipated in India’s elections, setting the stage for an unlikely comeback.
“He has lastly arrived,” mentioned Rasheed Kidwai, a fellow on the Observer Analysis Basis, a assume tank in New Delhi. “This time he has improved his vote share by at the least 17 million votes, which may be very substantial.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Modi’s celebration introduced that it had reached an settlement to type a governing coalition, together with two events that don’t essentially share its imaginative and prescient. Congress gained 99 seats within the 543-seat Parliament, a acquire of 47 seats, and the alliance of which it’s the main half gained a complete of 232.
Congress and its alliance of over two dozen political teams have offered the outcomes as a “ethical victory” over a B.J.P. authorities that they are saying was making an attempt to alter the nation’s Structure and have portrayed as anathema to India’s id as a multifaith and secular nation.
“The battle was to avoid wasting the Structure,” Mr. Gandhi, the son, grandson and great-grandson of Congress prime ministers, mentioned because the outcomes poured in.
The primary main signal that Congress may be capable of contend got here in Might 2023, simply a few months after Mr. Gandhi’s conviction for slander, when his celebration gained the state authorities of Karnataka, within the south of India, from the B.J.P.
The carry was non permanent; Congress quickly misplaced energy in three states it ruled to the B.J.P.
However on the similar time, political consultants say, Mr. Gandhi was pushing for adjustments inside the celebration, India’s oldest, which had lengthy resisted overhauling an archaic organizational construction that stored its high leaders remoted from the grass-roots staff who ship votes.
Emotions that Congress’s leaders have been corrupt and out of contact resulted in a string of defeats over quite a few years after which degenerated into messy infighting inside the celebration.
For the previous two years, celebration members say, Mr. Gandhi has tried to reverse the decline of Congress by surrounding himself with younger coverage analysts to assist him perceive the challenges going through India, in addition to celebration veterans with their ears to the bottom in cities and villages that Congress was concentrating on. The celebration has as well as improved its social media sport, trumpeting its messages on platforms like WhatsApp and YouTube.
Mr. Gandhi additionally raised his profile by embarking on two walks throughout India — assembly farmers of their fields and vegetable sellers on metropolis streets; and ingesting tea with current graduates and gig staff — in an effort to indicate widespread trigger with bizarre individuals.
Maybe most vital, Congress centered on a technique of reaching out to and cooperating with key regional gamers throughout the nation whose affect had dimmed beneath B.J.P. rule.
Congress leaders made a sequence of “seat-sharing” agreements with regional leaders, huge and small, that strengthened the alliance in opposition to Mr. Modi’s celebration. To keep away from splitting the anti-B.J.P. vote, Congress had its personal candidates contest fewer seats. And Mr. Gandhi campaigned vigorously alongside the leaders of like-minded political teams throughout India.
All through the marketing campaign, Mr. Gandhi additionally gained help, celebration leaders say, by characterizing Mr. Modi as a pacesetter who would destroy India’s secular character.
“It’s a victory not only for him and our alliance companions however for the tens of millions of poor Indians who voted to guard the secular material of this nation,” mentioned Srinivas B.V., one other Congress chief, about Mr. Gandhi. “Individuals confirmed Modi: ‘You aren’t God, and you may get replaced.’”
Since being voted to energy in 2014, Mr. Modi has sought to place Hinduism, the faith of some 80 % of Indians, on the heart of the nation’s official id. He additionally promised to finish corruption, overhaul the economic system and assist India change into a “developed nation” by 2047. However after his re-election in 2019, he leaned into Hindu themes to a better extent.
Mr. Gandhi’s efforts to distinction his imaginative and prescient for India with Mr. Modi’s largely paid off, analysts say, even when some members of his celebration jumped ship and sided with the B.J.P.
Lots of the politicians who defected from Congress to the B.J.P. misplaced their seats, together with in West Bengal and Maharashtra, the place Congress and its companions did particularly properly.
All through the marketing campaign Mr. Gandhi persistently linked Mr. Modi with Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest man, saying the prime minister was working for his tycoon pals, not for the overwhelming majority of Indians who’re poor. As if to vindicate this line of assault, over the 2 days after the election outcomes have been introduced, the worth of Mr. Adani’s flagship inventory fell by 14 %. (It then recovered considerably on Wednesday.)
“Individuals immediately correlate Adani Ji with Modi Ji — immediately,” Mr. Gandhi informed reporters after the outcomes, utilizing Hindi honorifics for the 2 males.
Researchers who traveled throughout India in the course of the voting mentioned Mr. Gandhi had crushed Mr. Modi on his personal turf in lots of locations by specializing in points just like the tens of millions of Indians with out jobs and the financial difficulties confronted by farmers. He additionally accused the B.J.P. of governance failures and labored with native political teams combating for social justice and for the empowerment of lower-caste Indians.
Uttar Pradesh, the place Mr. Modi made dozens of visits to marketing campaign for native candidates, is one state the place the altering fortunes of the 2 largest political groupings was evident.
The state is India’s largest, and accounts for 80 of the Parliament’s 543 seats. The B.J.P. recorded its worst efficiency there since 2009, partly as a result of Mr. Gandhi was capable of craft an alliance with a strong native chief, Akhilesh Yadav.
Along with the 37 seats picked up by Mr. Yadav’s Samajwadi Celebration, Congress gained six, helped by aggressive campaigning by Mr. Gandhi’s sister, Priyanka Vadra, who helped defeat a former soap-opera actress who had served as a minister in Mr. Modi’s authorities. The B.J.P. gained 33 seats, down from 62 within the earlier Parliament.
The election outcomes introduced on Wednesday have given a serious carry to a whole bunch of hundreds of Congress staff throughout the nation, who have been rising uninterested in the interior infighting that has plagued their celebration for years.
Exterior Congress headquarters in New Delhi, Bansi Lal Meena, a veteran Congress member from the state of Rajasthan, was exultant about his celebration’s efficiency.
“In villages and on the bottom, the B.J.P. unfold lies for years in opposition to us — saying that we’re anti-Hindu,” he mentioned. “They used my faith as a weapon in opposition to me to win votes.”
He added: “We are going to present them now as a result of our persons are additionally in Parliament.”
