Thiruvananthapuram: Three months after they fought one of the most keenly watched elections in the country’s history, representing different political parties and different states, three young leaders came together on Friday at Manorama News Conclave 2024 for a session, which turned out to reflect the vibrant ‘NDA vs INDIA’ debate the country has been witnessing after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Congress’s Sasikanth Senthil, who registered a thumping win from Tiruvallur constituency in Tamil Nadu, CPM’s Dipsita Dhar and BJP’s Anil Antony, who lost the elections from West Bengal’s Serampore and Kerala’s Pathanamthitta constituencies respectively, were at their eloquent best during the discussion on 'India: Voices that Matter'.

The three leaders touched upon a variety of topics, including the interpretations of the 2024 election verdict, ideological battle between the BJP and the Opposition and caste census.

Anil, who became a BJP spokesperson after resigning from Congress, was all praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership and BJP’s governance and highly critical of his former party and its leader Rahul Gandhi. Anil claimed that over the past few years the world has started to look upto India as a provider of stability and security during crises such as pandemic, Russia-Ukraine war and Gaza strife.

Listing out the Modi government’s achievements on development and welfare fronts, Anil said, “now you have an India that is rising than any time in the past. And every single situation, you are seeing the world that is looking up to India to be a stability provider as well as a security provider.”

On Congress’s electoral performance, Anil said, “Some people say they have improved their performance but it is still 99 seats and it is their third worst ever performance in history, all led by the same person.”

In response, Sasikanth said he considered the election to be a fight between two mindsets in which the idea of India won.

“It was people of India fighting against a majoritarian regime. Majoritarianism is not a very simple concept to defeat. India as an idea existed on pluralism, diversity and many other ethos. Right now there is this very strong fight between these two ideologies and in this election, it was not just the INDIA alliance or Congress. It was a huge part of the civil society, the people of India, who thought, we have to fight this. Everybody came together and that was the fight. Electorally, we were facing a huge imbalance in competition. There was no media space. You had our party’s accounts frozen just one week before election. So many other things. All that set aside, this country needed a proof of life. And this election gave a proof of life. The ethos of the idea of India survives. And, being in the Parliament, I'm able to visibly see what it has done,” he said.

“There are many leaders who are emerging to represent the idea of equity and I feel Rahul Gandhi also represents that ideology within our party. He is the person, he is the leader, along with other leaders who are pushing for this ideology, to bear the torch for this ideology,” he added.

Sasikanth also countered Anil’s accusation that Rahul was trying to polarise the country with his frequent call for caste census.

“Tell me when has caste not been a point in this country? Is there anything else which is a reality in this country? See you know everything from the birth to the death is decided by caste and if people want to debate that we can. And that's the biggest elephant in this room and that's what BJP has been hiding you know. Now my question to BJP is like they have projected themselves as the harbinger of the Hindu society. When a caste census comes who is going to get benefited? It is the majority of the Hindu society which is going to get benefited. Right now my question is why do they don't want that? ...BJP is absolutely worried about that because it is an upper caste-controlled Hindutva ideology. Hindutva is not Hinduism. Hindutva is a political construct and that construct survives on the caste structure you know and that is why they are really worried about when we talk about caste,” he said.

Dipsita supported Sasikanth’s claims and said that BJP MP Anurag Thakur’s comments in Parliament against Rahul itself was proof for the need to conduct caste census.

“What kind of casteist mindset, what kind of casteist audacity an individual can have. We have already seen that and I think that one statement is a major reason or enough evidence for anyone to go and support a caste census,” she said.

“The history of India stands on the marginalised people, on the Dalit, on the Adivasi, on the women, their sacrifices, their fight, their resistance, their resilience against every kind of hegemonic regime. Let it be the then feudal society or later on the colonial oppressors and even now the hegemonic Hindutva regime, we see the people of this country, the marginalized section of this country had always been in the forefront fighting for their rights,” she said.

On the BJP’s allegation that the INDIA alliance in which Congress and CPM are allies, this is what she had to say: “Irrespective of whatever political differences we have or whatever fight we are having in Kerala we are very clear in one understanding, in one ideology that this whole country is not anyone's paternal property.”