It’s Common For Opposition Leaders To Shake Hands, The Need For Parties Is To Join Hands

Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Pawar think they are more suitable to play the anchor role as Sonia has withdrawn herself due to health issues.

The need for the Opposition to unite against the BJP is a general theory that all opposition parties in India have been subscribing to since 2014 but find it difficult to make it work on the ground.

There have been off and on attempts to forge opposition unity over the past years but if one looks around the political spectrum across the country, the Opposition appears to be far from being a solid grouping, an alternative which can take on the saffron party’s juggernaut and a platform the voters can identify with.

Some poll pacts have been worked out during the past and recent assembly elections, keeping in mind the local factors, but an anti-BJP alliance at the national level is conspicuous by its absence.

The BJP, which came to power at the Centre in 2014 and has expanded presence across states since then, is aware of this shortcoming in the opposition camp and plays it to its advantage.

To begin with, any opposition grouping requires an anchor around which the constituents can rally.

The Congress, led by Sonia Gandhi had played this role post 2014, but of late has been facing reservations from certain quarters, namely Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar.

Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Pawar think they are more suitable to play the anchor role as Sonia has withdrawn herself due to health issues and has informally passed on the baton to her son Rahul Gandhi.

Sonia, who is currently the interim Congress chief, had served as regular party president from 1998 to 2017. She was respected by the various regional leaders who were willing to group together under her.

Rahul replacing Sonia as party chief in 2017 and the Congress shrinking across states, however, changed the equations and gave rise to the aspirations of the regional parties.

TMC in West Bengal, NCP in Maharashtra and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in New Delhi think their local clout is sufficient to let them lead an opposition grouping against the BJP.

In a way, each of these players wants to assert itself in the face of a weakened Congress, which either sought them as allies or made futile attempts to push them over in the respective states.

Interestingly, two of these, the TMC and the NCP are offshoots of the Congress which have grown in size over the years. For their own survival in their home states, the regional parties need to keep the grand old party at bay.

This has been evident in the responses of Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar and Arvind Kejriwal respectively.

Mamata’s efforts to present herself as a rallying point of an anti-BJP front has been noted by many over the past several years.

Pawar’s power play behind forging the ruling Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition in Maharashtra, sustaining it and occasionally making it wobble too, is all part of an attempt to project him as the new anchor of the opposition unity.

Kejriwal too has ambitions to grow beyond Delhi and never misses a chance to slam the Congress, which has always doubted his ideological orientation.

Mamata’s recent appeal to various opposition parties even as she is locked in a bitter power tussle with the BJP in West Bengal polls reflects her ambition for a larger national role if the TMC wins a third consecutive term.

Already, Pawar, Kejriwal, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s MK Stalin, and Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav are backing Mamata to tease the Congress, which has often been accused by the regional outfits of playing the big brother.

On his part, Akhilesh Yadav sent party Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan (a Bengali) to campaign for Banerjee. Pawar too was ready to campaign for TMC but was urged by West Bengal Congress leaders to refrain from doing so.

A careful analysis of Opposition unity shows that while most regional parties want to marginalize the Congress, it may not be entirely possible for them to wish away the grand old party.

There are reasons behind this view. One, the regional parties have little or no presence across the states they are based in and two, they lack the wherewithal and the national perspective to counter the BJP.

The Congress, however diminished its stature might be, has this advantage and can claim to be an opposition anchor. However, the grand old party has to first settle internal issues, like who heads the organization, and restructure the party systems, and increase its presence across states, before it can play the lead role.

The regional leaders could easily relate to Sonia Gandhi during the United Progressive Alliance years as they were in the same age group. These leaders may not be that comfortable with Rahul, much younger to them, the same way.

However, along with the Congress, the next generation of leadership has taken over regional parties like the SP by Akhilesh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal by Tejaswi Yadav, and DMK by Stalin, who find the going easy with Rahul.

These regional leaders have worked closely with Rahul over the past years, UP in 2017, Bihar in 2020 and Tamil Nadu in 2021 but a section of seniors has been miffed over the former Congress chief’s style of functioning.

Mamata Banerjee certainly has been the most vocal critic of the BJP as compared to any other opposition chief minister though Rahul’s consistency in targeting the saffron party too cannot be ignored.

The latest support for Banerjee has come from People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti, who had burnt her fingers after heading a coalition government with the BJP in the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state, and now bats for an anti-saffron party front nationally.

The regional players have also been toying with the idea of a federation of state parties, probably without the Congress, but would still need to have a common minimum programme to come together and be able to present an effective counter to what they allege is the BJP’s heady mix of religion and politics.

The Opposition usually puts up a show of strength during the Parliament sessions as such short-term, issue-based protests suit the various parties. The challenge for them is to go beyond and hit the streets together.