Fishing in troubled waters to corner the ruling party and its leadership is not new for opposition parties. Early on, the Congress and opposition parties have tried every trick in the book to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP without much success.
It may be said that consistent efforts of Modi for the last six years to build a good rapport with ‘Gen Next’ through his radio talks and social media handles has made him popular among the youth. Also, no one can deny that it is the Millenials who are driving Modi’s nationalistic and development agenda and helping spread his popularity on social media networks across the globe.
This time, the Congress and the opposition parties see a potential political dividend in the Central Government’s decision to conduct the NEE and JEE examination from September 1. Demands for the postponement of JEE and NEET are picking up across several states against the backdrop of the phenomenal increase in the COVID cases. There is a strong opposition building up across the country against conducting the examination.
In this backdrop, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi recently held a virtual meeting with CMs of Congress-ruled states namely Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry and CMs of Jharkhand and Maharashtra, where the party is sharing power with its alliance partners. Staunch anti-Modi and anti-BJP Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too joined the virtual meet. Leaders accused the Centre of gross negligence towards the health and safety of 50 lakh students who have to appear for the JEE and NEET examinations amidst this pandemic situation. AIADMK, DMK and AAP have also demanded the postponement of the examination.
Punjab CM Amarinder Singh and Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray cited USA as an example which witnessed a spike in COVID cases because of lack of initiative. Both leaders extended their support to West Bengal CM’s proposal to knock the doors of the Supreme Court for a review on conducting the JEE and NEET examinations.
Congress received a shot in the arm after several BJP leaders including MP Subramaniam Swamy, star hero Sonu Sood and several other prominent people and leaders urged the Centre to postpone the examinations in view of health and safety concerns of students. The Congress and opposition parties also hope to get support from AP CM YS Jaganmohan Reddy, Telangana CM K Chandrasekhara Rao, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu, Kerala CM Pinnarai Vijayan and others in this matter.
Congress aims to wean the millenials away from Modi and BJP and try to make inroads into the cracking walls of hard-built support base. Whether they succeed or not remains to be seen.
