Project Opposition unity remains a non-starter, thanks to egos

The latest round of polls and manoeuvring by parties don’t give much hope for stitching together an alliance to take on the BJP

On Thursday, after the Trinamool Congress lost the Assembly bypoll to the Congress in Sagardighi, party supremo Mamata Banerjee held a press conference.

“In the 2024 elections, the TMC will fight alone. We will fight with people’s support. I believe those who want to defeat the BJP will certainly vote for the TMC,” said Mamata, whose national ambitions went up in smoke with the results from the Northeast.

As Mamata licked her wounds, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh twisted the knife further with a cryptic “sad-but-true” remark to a Congress leader's tweet which said the Trinamool “played the BJP game” in Goa and Meghalaya, and how one can have an “unified opposition with compromised parties”.

For those desperately seeking a grand alliance of Opposition parties to halt the BJP juggernaut, these remarks were another nail in the coffin. It must have definitely made the BJP chuckle.

Also Read | After bypoll loss, Mamata says Congress has understanding with BJP, vows that TMC will fight alone in 2024

The Lok Sabha polls are barely a year away, but the Opposition’s attempts have been bedevilled by one-upmanship and bloated egos.

No Opposition party is willing to cede the leadership space. Parties like the AAP, BRS, YSR Congress, BJD, BSP and the Samajwadi Party partly or wholly share Trinamool’s antipathy to the Congress.

The current round of political posturing comes after the Congress, in its political resolution in the Raipur Plenary Session, said the party “should go all out to identify, mobilise and align like-minded secular forces” while warning that “emergence of any third force will provide advantage to the BJP/NDA”.

Also Read | TMC will ‘ally’ with people for 2024 polls: Mamata

While the Congress acknowledges that the Assembly elections to nine states this year – three of them are already over – and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are “crucial for India’s future”, the way it handled the campaign in the Northeast may not augur well for Opposition unity.

In Tripura, neither Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge nor Rahul Gandhi campaigned. Kharge went to Nagaland for a day, while Rahul visited Meghalaya just once.

There was a suggestion that Rahul hold a joint roadshow with CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury in Tripura, where both the parties were in alliance.

But Rahul parachuted to his constituency Wayanad in Kerala. Another option was a roadshow with Kharge, but that too did not materialise.

Left leaders say the reluctance was due to the veto by Congress leaders from Kerala who fear it could boost its arch rival in the southern state.

But Kerala CPI(M) leaders, who were once against any truck with the Congress outside their state, seem to have had a change of heart, with party’s state secretary MV Govindan making it clear that the alliance in Tripura was right.

Some of the Congress’ tactics seem bizarre.

In Nagaland, on February 21, Kharge announced that an Opposition alliance would come to power in 2024, with his party leading the coalition and the Congress was “calling…talking…sharing views” with others.

The next day in Meghalaya, Rahul fired at the Trinamool, charging it with helping the BJP, a long-standing peeve of the Congress. The TMC promptly gave it back to Rahul, virtually shutting all doors for a rapprochement.

“The results of the three North-eastern states are disappointing for the Congress but not surprising. The Opposition was far from united in the Northeast. There is a lot of grandstanding by all Opposition parties,” political commentator Rashid Kidwai told DH.

Kidwai felt the Plenary Session should have discussed the contours of an Opposition unity in a much bigger way. “The resolution is one thing. It can only give a larger perspective. For how to work it out, you needed a discussion. There are senior leaders in the party who could have put their heads together to formulate a plan,” he said.

There had been at least two occasions last week for the Opposition to show its intent, but such is the distrust that it never came to fruition; instead, what was on display was pettiness. The first instance was when Congress’ Pawan Khera was deplaned and arrested for his remarks against PM Narendra Modi; the second was the arrest of AAP’s Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia by the CBI in the excise policy case.

Both cases are threaded by a common grouse of the Opposition: the weaponising of central agencies and the stifling of dissent. Yet they couldn’t set aside their differences for a moment.

A senior Congress leader told DH on the sidelines of the Plenary Session that his party and others should now actively think of appointing points-persons for taking forward coalition talks.

At the same time, when talk of unity is the flavour of the season, another Opposition leader said they should think strategically. For example, he said even if the Trinamool does not align with the Congress and Left, the sky will not fall.

His argument is that the Congress and the Left could attract anti-Trinamool votes at a time there is rising discontent against the Mamata regime, and prevent them from going to the BJP.

It is high time the Opposition gets its act together. For now, the situation looks hopeless.