Isn't GOP becoming collateral damage?

The grand old party's leadership in the country should be a worried lot now. Not that it was not earlier. It was... always. Sonia Gandhi's health does not permit her to steer the party through crisis after crisis. Rahul Gandhi's immaturity has only flourished to take the party further deep into the untested waters.

So-called seniors in the party are desperately fighting the younger voices on a daily basis to the detriment of everyone. The overall scenario is gloomy. With its passive role in Maharashtra's now defunct Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the party is simply trying to stay afloat and be in circulation. It is in power in a few States but nothing worthy could be said about its existence there.

Even smaller regional parties are putting up a brave fight against the BJP behemoth to be relevant to its voters in their States.

But, the Congress with its firm belief that 'India is only a Union of States' is attempting its best to become irrelevant to the people everywhere. The alacrity with which it fights the 'Hindutva' to sound 'politically right' to the international audience has not helped its cause much.

The Rajasthan crisis for the party could not have come at a more critical juncture. The Gehlot government is fighting the 'hate politics' the wrong way from the beginning. Internally, the party could somehow salvage its pride and prevent the BJP from splitting the party with the help of Sachin Pilot in the past. But, the government handled the 'law and order situations' posed to it by both the majority and the minority communities in a disastrous way. The outcome of every such situation has only strengthened the BJP hand and queered the pitch for the ruling party. The attacks on the Hindus during their festival processions recently have further distanced the party from the majority.

The beheading of Kanhaiya Lal by Mohammad Riyaz and Ghouse Mohammad on June 28 in Rajasthan allegedly in reaction to the victim's supportive tweet for Nupur Sharma has inflamed the passions further in the State as well as in the country. In fact, the killing took the fizz out of Shiv Sena led by Uddhav, too, to some extent and might have forced him to resign ahead of his floor test.

The Gehlot government has gone on an overdrive putting Rajasthan on high alert, invoking CrPC Section 144 across the State for a month and suspending mobile internet for a month across the state. But the damage seems to have been done already. The killing could have given a definitive edge to communal politics and next year when the State goes to poll, it could have an impact.

Rajasthan has been on the boil for a long time. Violence has been rocking the State in various districts over the past few months. All this has been resulting in polarisation not only in the State but also is impacting the voters' mood everywhere. Now-a-days it is difficult to confine the influence of any incident to that particular area or its immediate neighbourhood. Every incident happening even in a remote corner of the country gets streamed into the drawing rooms of the corner. Nupur Sharma/tailor beheading will be the turning point in the polarisation of politics of the country itself and the Congress could become the collateral damage.