Gourav Vallabh: Cong’s TV voice discovers BJP language, of Ram Temple, Sanatan Dharma and Cong ‘sins’

Vallabh claimed he was also disturbed by the remarks of some Congress leaders regarding Sanatan Dharma. “I went to every single Congress leader and told them we will be wiped out once again in North India because of the statements by our allies (the DMK) and some of our leaders abusing Sanatan… but nobody listened.”

Incidentally, as recently as the November Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Vallabh, who joined the Congress in 2017, was fielded by the party from the Udaipur seat. (While Vallabh is a native of Udaipur, he has not lived there since 2002.)

On Thursday, Vallabh attributed his loss (by more than 32,000 votes) to “the abuses against Sanatan by our alliance partners”. “The Congress is not aware of what is happening on the ground. You did not go to the Ram Mandir ceremony… you are a sinner.”

The Udaipur loss was Vallabh’s second electoral defeat, with the Congress fielding him in 2019 from the Jamshedpur East Assembly seat against the sitting BJP chief minister, Raghubar Das. That was just two years after Vallabh had joined the Congress. Vallabh finished third in the contest.

Gourav Vallabh joins the BJP in New Delhi Thursday. (ANI)

Vallabh was also part of the team that managed Mallikarjun Kharge’s election for the post of Congress president in 2022. He had triggered a controversy then by slamming Shashi Tharoor, a contender for the president’s post, while backing Ashok Gehlot, who was seen as the official candidate of the high command.

This had prompted the Congress to issue a direction asking “spokespersons and office-bearers of the Communications Department of AICC to refrain from making any comment of any kind on any colleague of ours contesting the elections for the post of Congress president”.

While it can be argued that the Congress has been more than generous to him, Vallabh said he had a long list of grievances against the party’s functioning.

“I reminded the leadership several times that it was the Congress government headed by P V Narasimha Rao which ushered in liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation. Dr Manmohan Singh was the Finance Minister… I told them that we should not blindly oppose everything… but the party opposed every disinvestment. The Tatas bought Air India, you abuse the Tatas. Every wealth creator is abused. In the past, we would welcome wealth creators, they contribute to the GDP and to employment generation,” he said.

Vallabh added: “I shared my concerns with top Congress leaders, but they were reluctant to listen to me. They told me to speak to (general secretary) K C Venugopal. Will Venugopal understand liberalisation?”

With the Congress manifesto release due in days, he said that the people behind drafting it “have been making manifestos for the last 25 years or at least 10 years”. “Did the Congress get votes? People like (Rajya Sabha MP) Imran Pratapgarhi and (Gujarat Congress MLA) Jignesh Mevani are members of the manifesto committee. Bhagwan sab ko sadbuddhi de (May God give everybody wisdom), I can only say this,” he said.

Before he ventured into politics, Vallabh was a professor at the prestigious XLRI, Jamshedpur. A doctorate in credit risk assessment, he is a certified financial risk manager and chartered accountant.

In the Congress, he immediately caught attention as an articulate spokesperson. One of his famous TV duels was with BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra in 2019, during which he asked the latter whether he knew the number of zeroes in a trillion, amid assertions by Patra that India would become a $5 trillion economy by 2024.

Asked how he could justify joining a party that he had criticised vocifersouly all these years, Vallabh said: “There is something called an essential condition in a job interview, and something called a desirable condition. My essential conditions are the nation’s development, economic development, economic prosperity, and last but not the least dharmic (religious)… dharma’s raksha (securing religion). When the Congress is striking at my essential conditions, then what do I do? Staying there would mean my essential conditions are not my essential conditions… I had no other choice.”

Vallabh added that the Congress needed to offer a counter-narrative beyond just attacking the Modi government. “The Congress cannot just criticise and run… What is the constructive criticism for which Opposition parties exist in the system?”

Pointing out that he joined the Congress when it had just 44 MPs, he said: “So I have no lust for power. Plus I have joined the BJP at a time when (almost) all its candidates have been announced. I have left the Congress and joined the BJP because of my ideological convictions. For me, Vande Mataram is the first ideology and Jai Siya Ram is the second.”