Pegasus is Rafale 2.0 moment for RaGa
The entire Monsoon Session of Parliament has been washed out with very little productivity. Lok Sabha worked for 21% and Rajya Sabha for 29%. If not for the OBC Amendment Bill, where the entire Opposition supported due to political compulsions, the productivity would have been much lesser.
Productivity in Monsoon Session of Parliament (Source: PRS)
The Opposition, led by Rahul Gandhi, did not let the Parliament function because it wanted discussion on the Pegasus snooping issue as a priority and before other pressing matters like farmers’s protest, price rise, COVID-19 crisis. Opposition adopted a ‘Pegasus first or none’ approach.
Opposition alleges that phones of many leaders and journalists including Rahul, aides of Mamata, Siddaramaiah were snooped upon using the Israeli spyware.
Many analysts, including myself, feel that by raising a non-issue, the Opposition has given a free run to the Modi government. It could have gheraoed the BJP government on rising fuel prices, high inflation, COVID deaths, plan for economic revival, issues which touch and impact the lives of common man.
Instead, Rahul chose to make it personal and bank on the Pegasus issue. Phones of only a few hundred people have been allegedly snooped upon, and most people of the country don’t really care about it. This is validated by a survey conducted by Prashnam.
Prashnam conducted an all India survey across 12 states to measure awareness and understanding of the Pegasus issue among India’s general population. Of those surveyed, only 15% of people are aware of Pegasus. 85% do not know what Pegasus is or the issue surrounding it. Many felt it was a new variant of coronavirus.
Of the 15% people who are aware, 37% feel the Modi government is using Pegasus software to spy on common people. 38% don’t feel the Modi government is spying, while 25% said they don't know.
Essentially, 85% of the population hasn’t heard about / doesn’t know about Pegasus. A miniscule 6% know and feel Modi government is spying, 6% know about it but don’t think there is any spying while 4% know about the issue but can’t really say whether there is a hand of Modi government behind all this.
Awareness about Pegasus (Source: Prashnam Survey)
Congress which has a big data cell led by an ex-investment banker Praveen Chakravarthi doesn’t really rely on data it seems.
Pegasus is fast turning out to be Rafale 2.0 for Rahul. Before the Lok Sabha elections too, Rahul had decided to make Rafale a big issue. He targeted the Modi government for favouring private parties and buying aircrafts at a higher price compared to the deal which the UPA government had negotiated. He also coined the slogan ‘Chowkidaar chor hai’.
As it turned out, Rafale was a non-issue in the elections. Development, price rise and unemployment were the Top 3 issues which people cared about. These issues impacted the voter's decision more than anything else.
Top Issues in 2019 Lok Sabha elections (Source: CSDS, The Hindu)
As per CSDS-Lokniti post poll survey, half the respondents were not found to be aware of the Rafale issue, and even among the other half that was aware, opinion on whether there had been wrongdoing by the government in the deal was nearly split down the middle — 41% believed so and 37% felt otherwise.
This is another clear case of Rahul and his team being out of touch with ground reality. Rahul still lacks the skills to gauge the pulse of the public despite being in politics for more than 15 years. Judgement is a key skill which politicians acquire over time, they need to know what will work and what not and learn from their mistakes.
The Congress party lacks a proper feedback mechanism. Most leaders in CWC, its apex decision making body, are not mass leaders. Rahul lives in his own echo chamber. Only 15% of people know about Pegasus also shows the poor social media architecture and information dissemination apparatus of the organization.
3 weeks of ho-hallah, umpteen meetings, united Opposition efforts, all have come a cropper.
DON’T MISS:
The anti-BJP, united Opposition math does not work. Here's why
Parliament deadlock: 5 reasons why Opposition is losing the plot
2 years of abrogation of Art 370: Modi govt’s 5 achievements
