The Congress acted swiftly and strongly against its leader Mani Shankar Aiyar for his 'Neech Aadmi' remark made against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The feedback from the party's election managers in Gujarat was that the comment had a vast potential to damage the party's campaign for the assembly polls. Party vice president Rahul Gandhi quickly decided in favour of taking extreme action against Aiyar.
Within hours of the comment being made in a TV byte on Thursday, Aiyar was suspended from the primary membership of the Congress, and the disciplinary action committee of the party served him a show cause notice. The action followed Rahul's tweet that he and the country expected Aiyar to apologise to the prime minister for the remark.
Aiyar's comment came just as campaigning for the first phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections, to be held on December 9, was coming to an end. And the BJP latched on to it, with Modi referring to it several times as he addressed public meetings in the western state. BJP leaders claimed the Congress leader had levelled a casteist insult against the prime minister and said that it reflected the party's elitist attitude. It was Aiyar's remark at an AICC meeting in the run-up to the 2014 elections that led to Modi encashing his chaiwala beginnings. He had said that Modi was unlikely to become prime minister, but he could be given space at the AICC meet to sell tea.
In his rallies, Modi said that Congress leaders could attack him with regard to his humble origins as much as they wanted, but he would continue to work for the people. The aim was to project himself as the aggrieved party and use the opportunity to hark back to his under-privileged beginnings.
The Congress hopes that the action against Aiyar will limit the damage done by his comment, and is now describing the move to suspend the leader from the party as exemplifying Rahul's leadership qualities.
“The action shows the moral values of Rahul Gandhi. He has always maintained that such objectionable comments should not be made about anyone, even if the person is a political adversary. The prime minister should learn from Rahul and should apply the same standards to himself,” said Congress leader Ajoy Kumar.
He said going by the yardstick set by Rahul, the prime minister should first and foremost take action against himself. “Didn't he (Modi) call Sonia Gandhi a Jersey Cow and Rahul Gandhi a hybrid calf? Who made the Khooni Panja remark? Sunanda Pushkar was called 'Rs 50,000 crore ki girlfriend'. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh was called a Dehati Aurat. And Amit Shah used the term 'Chatur Baniya' for the father of the nation,” he said.
The Congress campaign has been carefully crafted so as to avoid communal issues and personal attacks on electoral rivals. The strategy derives from the feedback that polarisation of the electorate on communal lines helps the BJP, and that Modi benefits from personal attacks made on him by his rivals.
It was this feedback that led to the Congress ditching its 'Vikas has gone crazy' campaign after Modi proclaimed 'I am Vikas.' Besides, Rahul, in his interaction with the team handling the social media campaign of the party in Gujarat advised it not to make any personal attacks on leaders of the rival camp.
