How will Rahul Gandhi's court triumph affect Congress's fortunes in the south?

While the Supreme Court's decision has reverberated across the Congress, images of joy in southern states stood out as a clear reminder of the interplay between legal proceedings and political realities. As Congress workers held celebratory rallies with large crowds in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, they expressed confidence that the party would win the upcoming assembly elections. The overall media coverage in southern states also viewed the decision as a vindication of Gandhi's leadership.

Congress insiders hailed the decision as a watershed moment that would drastically influence the party's political fortunes in southern states. The party has recently been relying on the south to counter its loss of electoral appeal in the north. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Gandhi sought a seat outside the family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh for the first time, and found it in Kerala's Wayanad. As Gandhi had to tour India extensively for the elections, it was chosen as a safe seat where he could attend only a few rallies and yet win.

Gandhi was following in the footsteps of his grandmother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who won from Karnataka's Chikmagalur in 1978 and Telangana's (previously Andhra Pradesh) Medak in 1980, bucking the anti-Emergency wave; and his mother Sonia Gandhi, who won from Karnataka's Bellary in 1999.

The Supreme Court’s decision helped the Congress greatly. Not only did Gandhi win Wayanad by a landslide, his popular appeal helped the party sweep 19 of Kerala's 20 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress won nearly half of its total of 52 seats in five southern states and union territories in 2019. Despite the party's poor performance elsewhere, the southern surge helped it rebound from 44 to 52 seats between the 2014 and 2019 elections. According to a post-election Hindustan Times study, the party won nine seats in the south for every seat it lost elsewhere.

Since then, Gandhi has emerged as an outspoken critic of the BJP's policies in the region, someone with national clout who appears at practically all major local events and even participates in regional-language vlogs. He is regarded as a more liberal and secular leader than Prime Narendra Modi, who is seen as a Hindu nationalist. This appeals to many south Indian voters, who are more diverse (with four major languages, and heterogenous religion and culture) than those in north India.

The BJP on the other hand arguably doesn’t have a leader with a pan-south appeal other than Modi, as recent election results show. The BJP was humiliated by the Congress in the recent Karnataka elections, and the party no longer has a presence in any southern state government, either directly or through partners.

The Congress on the other hand is now in power in Karnataka, a junior partner in the Tamil Nadu government, trying to form coalitions with parties in power in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and a major opposition force to the communists in Kerala. Gandhi's ability to connect with young people who are growing disillusioned with the region's traditional political satraps, as well as the development of regional leadership, has played a significant role in this. Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra,' a foot tour across the country last winter, was the party's largest mass outreach in southern states in recent years and won it enormous social capital.

With campaign fever for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections heating up, the Congress needed Gandhi to be the face of the party to keep this momentum going. While there are various regional personalities who could campaign in southern states, there is certainly no national Congress leader who can galvanise cadres across the south the way that Gandhi has.

Had the court’s judgement gone the other way, Gandhi's prospective two-year prison sentence and an eight-year ban from voting could have upended the Congress’s calculations. For southern leaders, Gandhi's electoral ineligibility seemed unfathomable. For instance, when Congress leaders from Kerala met the national party's senior brass in Delhi on 3 August to discuss strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, they simply believed that the Supreme Court would rule in his favour. The alternative was never considered.

Gandhi returned to parliament on Monday, armed with the court's decision. The saga, however, runs the risk of stymieing the opposition alliance INDIA, comprising 26 parties including the Congress. Some Congress leaders have clearly indicated Gandhi is their next candidate for prime minister, reportedly irritating other INDIA alliance partners such as Kerala's Communist Party of India (Marxist), which stands to lose heavily in another Gandhi-wave election.