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Rahul Gandhi may be far from his prized prey, the PM’s chair, but he has tasted blood. He realises that even though the Congress still has just 99 seats in the Lok Sabha, it has bettered its tally from 52 mainly because he could consolidate minority — mainly Muslim — votes, and divide the Hindu mandate on caste lines.

Emboldened by the minority support, and aware that the core saffron base will never vote for him, Rahul’s first speech in Parliament was a full-frontal attack on Hindutva.

“Those who call themselves Hindu do violence, violence, violence…hatred, hatred, hatred round the clock,” he said.

Here is what his strategy looks like.

First, Rahul Gandhi wants to neuter assertive Hinduness, kill Kshatriyata, and weaken the instinct of self-defence in the community. His speech dwelt a fair bit on spinning Bhagwan Shiv as the protector of the appeased rather than the destroyer of evil, when even Bhagwan Vishnu, the original protector of everything good, takes up arms to slay adharma every time it is needed.

Rahul Gandhi said Hindus and Sikhs have never attacked other nations, but never mentioned the violent and barbaric expansionism of Islam or the evangelical guile and conversion agenda of Christianity.

Not once did he condemn the Sharia-style flogging of a woman by a goon Tajemul Haque, whose political master, TMC MLA Hamidur Rahman later said these things happen in a Muslim Rashtra.

Nor did he call out other recent cases of naked Muslim violence against Hindus.

Second, by later clarifying that PM Narendra Modi, BJP or the RSS do not represent Hindus, he is trying to choke the rising Hindu political voice. Portraying the BJP and the RSS as un-Hindu is a ploy to divide the devoted and the fence-sitter, deracinated Hindus.

Third, Rahul Gandhi has discovered the magic of dividing Hindus along caste lines. His call for caste census, and spreading a false alarm among Dalits that if the BJP comes with a resounding majority, it would change the Constitution and withdraw reservation seem to have paid off.

But Rahul Gandhi must remember that in spite of his immediate success, the revival of Hinduness is not going anywhere in a hurry. While the BJP lost over 60 seats, its slide in the overall vote share has been less than one per cent: 36.56 per cent in 2024 compared with 37.36 per cent in 2019.

The more vicious, divisive, and denigrating his attacks against Hinduness gets, the quicker saffron forces will regroup. The BJP and RSS just needs to introspect whether hubris and complacency have set in, fix internal fissures, and go back to the people unitedly.

Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.