"We haven't seen such a cowardly Prime Minister in the history of India,” Ashutosh Ranka said after being released from detention. A few months ago, nobody would have thought that people would take to the streets and directly attack the Prime Minister of India.
But the psychological warfare against Narendra Modi was started by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with "chowkidar chor hai" (Watchman is the thief campaign). His strategy, however, had fizzled out with the election loss, as it was only able to win around 55 seats. Later, after each successive election defeat, the Congress started targeting Modi less. Many around him had suggested that Congress decision-makers focus on issues rather than directly target the BJP leaders. Meanwhile, the Congress's attacks on the BJP's policies had also backfired.
But Rahul Gandhi then claimed that he had started receiving information from within the government system sometime back. He soon came out with a detailed breakdown of how the assembly elections in Haryana were allegedly stolen by the BJP-EC nexus. He ramped up his sustained and direct attacks on the Modi-Shah duo after a long time.
Then came the CJP protests and Modi shared a video on social media in which he apologised to the youth for the abuse directed at him.
Since then, opposition leaders, CJP leaders and, additionally, Neha Bora, the national president of AISA, have all trained their guns directly on the BJP leadership.
“We were just asking for Gyanesh Kumar's resignation, but the BJP is trying everything to protect him. They have abused and beaten many students who were protesting peacefully. Now, our fight is directly against Modi and Amit Shah,” Ashutosh Ranka said.
Since the student protests began, Rahul Gandhi has also pulled out all the stops to corner the BJP leadership. “I know everything, they know I know everything, and that is why they are scared,” Rahul Gandhi said at one of his press conferences.
According to analysts, the opposition parties' and CJP's strategy has become more pointed over the past few months, with an attempt to target the very image that the BJP and its top leadership have crafted over the past 12 years. Another prominent leader who has joined the chorus is Mamata Banerjee, who has also started directly targeting the BJP's Modi-Shah duo.
There is an understanding among opposition leaders that this strategy will have a bandwagon effect in the coming months, with political leaders taking the fight forward. They will try to act as an umbrella for the youth movement and continue protesting until they can hold the government and the Election Commission accountable.
