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| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 12, 2018, 08:44 AM IST
Post the BJP’s victory in the Northeast, Opposition parties are scrambling around for strategies to subdue the saffron party in the coming assembly elections throughout this year.
From Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s threat to quit the NDA to a bizarre situation in the bypolls, held in UP and Bihar on Sunday, where arch rivals Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) got together, the bid was quite clear – to defeat the BJP.
The situation was made clearer as Opposition parties lined up to support each other’s candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls. Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced her party’s support for the Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Both parties seemed to have forgotten the fact that Mamata recently directed all her fury at the Tripura poll loss at Rahul Gandhi. Clearly, all seems to have been forgotten. Opposition parties are clearly hoping that this united front will dent the BJP’s fortunes. But this may not be the case. Bids to form a Third Front have been tried and failed miserably in Indian politics for the simple reason — everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie.
The second point is that many of these parties are not only ideologically different but more importantly, many of them can’t stand each other. Mamata gave the Congress-led UPA alliance plenty of headaches and that was when they were in power. So if they cannot get on while in power how can they get on while in Opposition?
The third, especially in the case of the SP and BSP, is that not only can these leaders not stand each other but that their communities can’t either. As the horrific Badaun rape case showed, Dalits and Yadavs will continue to clash in the state. It would take a brave and very persuasive leader, or leaders, to try and put these two communities together.
The reality is that coming together on a common platform will not be enough. Opposition parties need to articulate a credible message to the Indian voter as to why they are fighting together and what can they offer him that is different to what the BJP is offering.
Prime Minister Modi and the BJP won, and keep winning, because they are offering vikas and jobs, a formula that undid the Left after 25 years in Tripura. So why is the Opposition doing what it is doing? The Opposition is looking to the past and memories of rivals-turned-friends Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav, whose Grand Alliance trumped the saffron party in Bihar, is something they feel can make a difference. But can it? Differences emerged all too quickly after the polls showing the already sceptical voter what a sham the alliance was.
The second thing is that for parties to come together they need to first clip internal dissent in the wings. Question marks are being raised, albeit in whispers, at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the Mulayam and Akhilesh fallout has divided their party following, Mayawati can’t seem to stop the exodus of leaders from the BSP and the near decimation of the Left makes for a sorry state of affairs there.
