In what can be described as a telling blow to the Rahul Gandhi led Congress in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls this year, Times NOW-VMR opinion poll released on March 18 has revealed that propaganda about the Rafale deal has very little significance among the voters. Less than 3 per cent voters care for this issue and therefore, only negligible strata of the electorate is concerned about the allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal.
In fact, more voters are concerned with the issue of cow protection and construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Rahul Gandhi has therefore clearly lost the plot even as the Parliamentary elections are approaching closer. There was nothing substantial that the Congress was alleging in relation to the Rafale deal. In fact, every allegation that the Congress threw at the Modi government was exposed as a fabricated story immediately. With every round of false allegations, the voters understood that there is nothing substantial about the allegations over the Rafale deal.
Rightlog.in had predicted that Rahul Gandhi’s Rafale propaganda will turn out to be counter-productive last year itself. In an analysis of the political ramifications of the Rafale deal, Rightlog.in had opined, “For quite some time, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been trying to corner prime minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale issue. In fact, the entire ecosystem associated with the Congress and their Mahagathbandhan mates got sucked into this controversy and have been trying to allege foul play in probably the most well-known defense deal. The BJP kept on dodging this issue, making the Congress and its propagandists think that there is something which they could expose, while in fact the Rafale deal is altogether authentic and there is no evidence with its critics to point out any foul play, kickbacks or corruption of any other manner. However, before the Congress could realize, it got totally done in. It wasted all its time, resources and a humongous troupe of propagandists who were a powerful tool for forming public opinion.” Therefore, Congress wasted all its energy and resources in cornering the government over a non-existent scam. Later on, the Modi government was given a clean chit by the Supreme Court in the Rafale deal and the lies being propagated about the deal were also exposed consistently. There were a number of issues that the Congress could have raised in a vociferous manner but the grand old party was consumed by the temptation to attack the Modi government over the Rafale deal.
Mounting an attack on the Congress over the Rafale deal will only turn out to be the Rahul Gandhi led to party’s biggest blunder in the recent past. The Congress has closed all doors towards a comeback in 2019 Lok Sabha polls by overspending its time and resources on raising the Rafale issue. The opinion poll corroborates the fact that Congress has failed to make any significant impact over the Rafale issue in spite of relentless propaganda against the deal.