Rahul Gandhi’s ‘social justice’ ploy at work?

The Congress has decided to reward only two of its sitting MPs in the Rajya Sabha for the March 16 elections to the Upper House with fresh terms, as it released its list of candidates on Thursday (March 5), the final date for filing nominations. The names the Grand-Old Party renominated are Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Phulo Devi Netam, from Telangana and Chhattisgarh, respectively, the same states they represent now.

For the remaining four seats it hopes to bag, it has picked Karamvir Boudh (Haryana), M Christopher Tilak (Tamil Nadu), Vem Narender Reddy (also from Telangana) and Anurag Sharma (Himachal Pradesh).

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While Boudh and Sharma are little-known names even within the Congress, Reddy is a former MLA from Mahbubabad in undivided Andhra Pradesh and considered a close aide to Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy.

Sharma is also considered close to Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and currently is the president of the District Congress Committee (DCC) in Kangra in the northern state.

The political plan behind Tilak

The surprise package, however, is Tilak, an All-India Congress Committee secretary who keeps a low profile. His candidature seems more of a result of circumstance than careful political consideration.

Set to make his Rajya Sabha debut from Tamil Nadu, he was a last-minute addition to the list of candidates, and his election will be backed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the southern state’s ruling party. It was only late on Wednesday (March 4) evening that days of intense haggling between the Congress and the DMK culminated in their final seat-sharing deal for the upcoming Assembly elections.

The Rajya Sabha seat was part of the deal that the Congress signed with the DMK, in order to secure 28 Assembly seats to contest in the state polls, compared to 25 that the senior ally gave them in 2021.

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According to sources, the DMK’s willingness to spare a Rajya Sabha berth for the Congress was conditional on supporting a nominee from the state, which effectively ruled out the possibility of the Congress para-dropping an ‘outsider’ in the fray.

Three factors that went in Tilak’s favour

What appears to have swerved the Rajya Sabha ticket Tilak’s way, Congress insiders claim, is a combination of three factors — first, his Tamil identity, which satisfied the DMK’s condition for backing a Tamil-only Congress candidate; second; he enjoys the confidence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and key Rahul Gandhi aide, K Raju, who is learnt to have pushed for his candidature; and third, his Dalit-Christian identity, which would make him the first person from this community to be elected to the Upper House from Tamil Nadu.

Caste, regional and gender identities have always carried weight in the way political parties choose their candidates, and for the Congress, the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls have been no different.

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If Tilak is set to be the first Dalit-Christian to be elected to the Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu, Netam fits the twin criteria of being a tribal and a woman. Similarly, Boudh has the credentials of being a Buddhist (religious minority) and a Dalit, besides being a social activist closely involved with Rahul’s ‘Save Samvidhan’ (Save Constitution) campaign for the past two years and the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ before that — a formidable combination that has clearly trumped his complete lack of political heft.

Rahul Gandhi’s say on Congress picks

Congress sources say the stamp of Rahul on the candidate list is unmistakable. Though Singhvi’s imminent return to the Rajya Sabha for a record sixth term is more a testament to his indispensability within the Congress, owing to his standing as the party’s go-to lawyer in times of crises, and Reddy’s candidature being attributed to his proximity to the Telangana chief minister, the remaining party nominees have been handpicked by Rahul.

Scores of party veterans, including seasoned leaders such as former Union minister Anand Sharma, former MP Rajni Patil, former Himachal Pradesh Congress chief Pratibha Singh, former Chhattisgarh minister T S Singh Deo and others, were also learnt to be vying for a Rajya Sabha seat.

However, the party’s decision to back younger and largely unknown faces such as Tilak, Boudh and Sharma was “Rahul’s decision”, say party sources, adding that the Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition wanted to convey several messages in one go.

‘New faces fulfil Rahul’s criteria’

“If you exclude Singhvi and Narender Reddy, all others have been chosen by Rahul because they fit one or more criteria that he attaches high significance to. Netam, Tilak and Boudh come from communities that Rahul has been fighting for at every platform when he speaks about the rights of the oppressed and backward communities and giving them representation in mainstream politics,” a close Rahul aide told The Federal.

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“Boudh has, in fact, been an integral part of the team that arranges Rahul’s ‘Samvidhan Sammelans’ (Constitution Conventions) and outreach to various oppressed communities. Sharma is a young, first-generation politician who was appointed as the Congress chief of the Kangra district in Himachal as part of Rahul’s action plan for strengthening DCCs and giving DCC chiefs a bigger political role,” the functionary added.

Another senior party leader, who has been closely involved with the party’s ongoing ‘sanghathan srijan’ (organisation building) campaign, a brainchild of Rahul, said the candidate list “is Rahul’s way of asserting that Rajya Sabha berths will no longer be distributed merely on the basis of seniority, experience and lobbying… candidates must align with his ideology and vision for the party and they should be unafraid to take on the BJP on any issue”.

Party section cautions Rahul over ignoring old guard

A section of the Congress, however, believes that Rahul’s experiment of ignoring experienced seniors in favour of untested newcomers could “deepen fissures” within the party.

One leader, who was hopeful of getting a Rajya Sabha ticket in the current round of elections, said “such experiments by Rahul” will give senior leaders and factional chiefs “already frustrated over being sidelined in the party, an excuse to leave” or, worse, orchestrate cross-voting against the party candidate in states where the Bharatiya Janata Party may want to play spoiler, as it has on many occasions in the past, by forcing an election.

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With the Congress’s strength in most state Assemblies depleted and the party no longer able to use the offer of a Rajya Sabha berth to win over sulking allies like before, many in the party believe Rahul needs to be more cautious.

“If you keep sending signals that seniority no longer matters in the party and those unhappy with this are free to leave, why will anyone who has spent decades in the party want to stay with you? He (Rahul) needs to strike a balance between experience and experiments,” a former Congress MP said.

Another round of RS polls soon

With another round of Rajya Sabha elections due in two months (the current RS terms of party chief Kharge, Digvijaya Singh, Shaktisinh Gohil and Neeraj Dangi will end in June), several senior leaders are already learnt to be lobbying for tickets.

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Kharge’s return to the Upper House from Karnataka is said to be certain, and the party can hope to win another two seats from the southern state. The Congress lacks the bench strength in the Gujarat Assembly to elect Gohil’s replacement, while it has just enough MLAs to elect one MP each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

As the party hopefuls look forward to the next round of RS polling, the big question in the Congress is whether any of them would qualify under Rahul’s criteria.