A Congress protest video emerging from Delhi’s Chhatrasal Stadium on Wednesday, October 7, showed something that was both an imitation and a pointer to an involuntary absorption. When a group of Congress leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi, performed the rock-a-bye action to their sloganeering, it seemed like raw plagiarism. They had borrowed the action from a video that had gone viral during the Jantar Mantar protests of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in July, but had wrapped it in their own unimaginative shrillness. In the original video, a young woman from the Left student movement was seen acting out the rocking of “Bal Narendra” as a dafli-playing comrade chanted alongside.

If imitation is a sign of acknowledgment, then it could be argued that the grand old Congress party, which has not extended its support either formally or informally to the CJP-led protests so far, appears to secretly envy its effectiveness and impact.

Why can’t the seemingly organised and the ostensibly unorganised opposition fuse to create a wider movement and a bigger force? Why is Congress keen to furrow its own path with half-hearted and sometimes disloyal alliance partners? As a political party with the best of........

© Indian Express