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India's 2 Biggest Political Parties Vie for Gandhi's Legacy

Associated Press

   GURGAON, INDIA -- The ideal candidate, India's oldest political party
   says on the registration form for an upcoming state election, is a
   teetotaler who prefers "khadi,'' home-spun cotton fabrics, in the style
   of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.
   "It's like an ode to Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary,'' said
   Congress party spokesman Pranav Jha.
   India's two biggest parties - Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party -
   are tripping over themselves to outdo each other in emulating and
   celebrating Gandhi, an anti-colonial icon who made Congress into a
   vehicle for the independence movement.
   Both parties have ordered officials to undertake Gandhi-inspired
   pilgrimages, walking up to 15 kilometers (9 miles) a day in their
   constituencies and sleeping in villages, beginning on Wednesday, the
   150th anniversary of Gandhi's birth and a national holiday in India.
   Congress, now the main opposition party, enjoyed decades of popularity
   after independence but suffered huge losses in the last two general
   elections. The BJP, the governing party of current Prime Minister
   Narendra Modi, promotes Hindu nationalism and won a landslide victory
   in this spring's polls.
   While secular, social-democratic Congress seems like the natural heir -
   Gandhi himself led the party in the 1920s - its recent weak leadership
   has allowed the BJP to create several splashy Gandhi-inspired programs
   and co-opt Gandhi's legacy into its Hindu nationalist agenda.

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