The Congress' polarisation and Rahul's ordinance outburst

A lot of analysis that is leading up to the big fight next year has centred around Modi and his ability to polarise the voter. Riding on that perception, even the violence in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar was blamed at Modi, despite there being nothing more than perception to link the two. But a less perceptible 'polarisation' is also happening: between the rich and the poor.

This polarisation is largely the result of the Congress' campaign for the general elections (and the smaller battles in the next month), which focuses almost entirely on the poor. The slogan "Aapka Paisa Aapke Haath" makes that clear: the poor need entitlements that the government will give. The Food Security Bill, which the BJP first ridiculed and then helped pass in Parliament, is going to cost the government a lot of money that many calculate it might not have, but Sonia Gandhi in her defence of the Bill in Lok Sabha said that the money "must be found".

This is making the middle class resentful of the Congress focusing on the poor, if not the poor themselves, because they say that the money will come out of their pockets.  Having tasted the good life because of high growth, an open economy and the money to take advantage of it, the current slowdown is making them insecure, with rising prices and the growing reality of job losses. This government has tasted that middle class anger already, during the Anna Hazara protest and the December 26 demonstrations that almost breached the seat of government in New Delhi. The middle class raged against what it saw as a corrupt and deaf government.

The BJP is focussing on this anger and quite successfully too, when measured in terms of turnout and response at Narendra Modi's rallies, most of which are in urban areas till now. The party had also succeeded in sending the bill to protect convicted netas into cold storage, otherwise known as a standing committee of Parliament. Going against the public mood about politicians and corruption, the government decided to bring in that protection through the backdoor. In the battle of perception, the BJP looked like it was winning.

Rahul Gandhi's public rant against the ordinance, however late and loaded with implications, can be seen as an acknowledgement of that growing polarisation, which is sending the urban voter to Modi's rallies. Ask a young MP and he or she will tell you that the rural voter doesn't care much about this ordinance and about high level corruption that is sends urban India into the throes of protests. Their problems are very different, which the government and the Congress are addressing, at least in their campaign material. There is also a growing feeling that the good monsoon will also help boost rural growth, so there will be less of a problem there for the Congress (and UPA).

But the urban voter is obviously different. Which is why the first signs that the ordinance could well be on its way out came from Milind Deora, minister of state. This was followed by Delhi chief minister Shiela Dikshit and her son and Congress spokesperson Sandeep Dikshit, who is an MP from Delhi. All three of them have to defend urban constituencies, one of them in the Delhi assembly elections in November. The Congress can't surely forget that the UPA came to power in 2009 having won 92 (or more than half) urban constituencies. These now could well be rooting for the BJP under Modi.

Rahul's rant against the ordinance has been interpreted to have several impacts and implications, mostly about the future of the Prime Minister, though this is hardly the first time he has gone against the government. The main criticism has been that instead of being discreet he chose the worst possible place to take on the government: the Press Club of India  -- news can't spread any faster from any other place than that.

And exactly because of that, it looked like it was be design to send out Rahul Gandhi's message to the urban middle class that they counted and his party was listening.