Arjun Modhwadia: The Face Of Lifelong Congress Loyalty In Gujarat Under Strain

The day before yesterday’s (4 March) biggest news was that, Arjun Modhwadia, a veteran Congress leader, quit the party and resigned his seat in the Gujarat legislature.

Yesterday’s news was that the former member for Porbandar assembly constituency was yet to decide what he would do next. And today’s news is that he has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But the truth of the matter is that Modhwadia’s former party, the Congress, had already become yesterday’s news a long, long time ago. If it didn’t seem that way, it is because of two historic deceits which allowed the Congress to sputter along for a few decades.

First, the Congress was effectively wiped out in the 1990 assembly elections, with the bulk of the votes and seats being carved up evenly between the Janata Dal (JD) and the BJP.

But the Congress managed to entice the entire lot of JD legislators, including their chief minister Chimanbhai Patel, to merge with the Congress. Second, in 1996, senior BJP leader Shankersinh Vaghela engineered a split in the party barely a year after it won a thumping victory in the 1995 assembly elections.

On each of these two occasions, if the Congress got some lease of life in Gujarat, and managed to maintain some relevance as a functional political force, the BJP’s answer to recover what it had lost, was to go back to what it does best — grassroots activity. 

Then came Narendra Modi, and the Congress was once again gradually reduced by the 2022 assembly elections to what it had become in 1990 — a party with less than 30 per cent vote share, a handful of seats courtesy favourable demographics (plus a significant level of local dissent against the BJP), and an utter incapacity to operate as a cohesive unit which stands for something meaningful.

That is the problem which people like Modhwadia face today — the leadership of the Congress party has reduced itself to such a level that it stands quite literally, and rather regrettably, for nothing.

What face can he show to the people of Gujarat, and what sort of a hapless defence can he put up, to the reckless, insulting anti-Hindu statements made by his senior central party leadership, and their allies in Tamil Nadu for example?

Consequently, people like Modhwadia are being forced to climb down from the heights of incendiary rhetoric they had once gleefully scaled, when the nature and magnitude of the approaching change was not yet visible to those who refused to look. 

It is a truly humiliating reversal which only thick-skinned politicians can weather: from comparing Modi to Aurangzeb in 2014, Modhwadia is now forced by his own dire political straits, to compare Modi with Mahatma Gandhi. Talk about extremes!

Part of the problem lies in the structuring of his former political organisation. And the pity is that the Congress was quite the opposite once upon a time, when it was a proper pan-Indian party. All such outfits are big tents; they have to be, if they are to be truly inclusive. Only then can they successfully accommodate a larger percentage of voters and dedicated workers within. 

During the freedom struggle, when communism was on the ascendant in India, the Congress very wisely allowed the establishment of the Congress Socialist Party, under its umbrella, to prevent the genesis of a separate, competitive strain.

This is not rocket science, but simple common sense; it is impossible, and stupid, to expect everyone to agree on everything. Even a publication like Swarajya recognises this aspect of human nature, which is why it positions itself as “a big tent for liberal right of centre discourse that reaches out, engages and caters to the new India”.

Unfortunately, the Congress tent has not just shrunk; it has also been blown well to the left by a saffron storm. In the process, it has ceased to exist in many large states of the Union, leaving politicians who gave their entire political careers to the party at a loss. What can they do? Where can they go? How might they regain entry into the corridors of power?

In states like Gujarat, the answer is obvious: join the BJP. And the final irony is that if, some decades ago, the Congress’ canopy was first lowered by a majestic civilisational awakening across our sacred land, its further shrinkage was driven by a rigid, deeply contentious, futile, self-defeating ideological obstinacy based on nothing.

Today, it is the Congress which fuels the inevitability of a ‘Congress-mukt-Gujarat’, and people like Modhwadia are but emblematic of that fated process.

Every big tent needs countless small ropes to bind the poles together and stay upright. Any political party ignoring that fundamental truth is destined to become a shrivelled moth-eaten caricature of itself, fluttering desolately in the winds of fate.