The march towards parliamentary polls in April-May expectedly picked up pace as the new year began. While it appears that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is drumming up a celebration in a rather humdrum anticipation of a re-election, the mood in the opposition camp is palpably forlorn. In constant fear of coming across as disjoined and crumbling under the weight of an acronym that it gave itself—INDIA—the opposition is struggling to answer certain basic questions.
Those questions chiefly pertain to seat-sharing formulas and the appointment of a formidable face to lead the opposition charge. Let’s keep the seat-sharing part aside and focus on the leadership question here. This assumes that one may first need a senior figure with relatively absent self-interest to not just put in place seat-sharing agreements between the 28-odd alliance partners, but also ensure they are carried through without sabotage.
During the opposition meeting on December 19, the name of Mallikarjun Kharge was proposed as the face by Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal. It appeared there was calculated mischief in suddenly throwing up the name without prior consultation or due deliberation. In Indian politics, the name that usually gains currency first is also the name that gets struck off first. In the case of Kharge, the name seems to have been abruptly invoked to not just cancel him out of the race eventually, but to send a message across to Congress.
By taking Kharge’s name, the message to the Congress was that Rahul Gandhi was not preferred. It was an indirect comment on his suitability. The proposers knew that the Congress and the family could not dismiss Kharge’s name outright because he was not only the Congress party’s national president, but his Dalit identity demanded a certain political correctness. A few days later, Kharge’s Karnataka colleague, Siddaramaiah, made it known that he would like to see Rahul Gandhi as prime minister. That was as direct as they could get. If Kharge did not enjoy applause at home, then one can imagine the rest of India.
Even when it comes to Dalits, everybody understands that it is not a flat, homogenous electorate. Its unity has been checkmated by many sub-castes, many visions and many leaders, and Kharge has hardly found a prominent place in the national Dalit landscape. To be fair, building a Dalit audience for the Congress was never his mandate. He was expected to be a placeholder for a Nehru-Gandhi, and he has played the role faithfully. The anxiety among the elite in his party that playing a Dalit card may wickedly polarise the vote in a deeply stratified society may not be unfounded.
Anyway, besides what an embarrassed Kharge himself said to reject the idea of his candidature—“Let’s win first, the PM candidate can be decided later”—the Congress employed a more subtle way to negate the idea of his candidature. Ten days after the December 19 kerfuffle around Kharge, the Congress reasserted the importance of Rahul Gandhi by announcing that he will be doing the Bharat Nyay Yatra from Manipur to Mumbai. They revealed he would cover 6,200 kms across 14 states. The message that he was the face of the party, and will always be, was pretty apparent. Never mind the questions the BJP provokes about the perpetuity of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty beyond 2024. During Rahul’s yatra this time, the Congress may not insist, like they did last time, that it is all about love and a larger social mission. They may not explicitly speak about Rahul Gandhi as a prime ministerial candidate but may add the sparkle of a poll campaign to his every step.
Mamata prematurely putting across Kharge’s name may have had a direct implication for the Nehru-Gandhis, but it was also her political way of hastening another, more acceptable name to the front. She perhaps thought that she should bell the cat given that the INDIA group was dragging its feet on literally everything since they began meeting in June 2023 in Patna. We do not know for sure who the other person was on her mind. It was not herself, certainly.
It was not Sharad Pawar. Could it have been Nitish Kumar? Did she think that he would at least make the contest against Modi formidable, if not winnable?
The unilateral announcement of Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra 2.0 has disrupted the entire opposition game. Many Opposition leaders are confused if the Congress wants to pursue a joint INDIA strategy or wants to go alone. The murmurs are there to be heard for ears with access. There were joint opposition rallies and other activities that were being planned and proposed, but if Rahul Gandhi is now going to be walking till the middle of March, then it is impossible to align schedules for sustained common activity. This may push the opposition to eventually settle with the idea of a post-poll alliance, after the numbers become clear and if it throws up an opportunity.
Also read: Will the real Congress please stand up?
By forcing this situation, the Congress may have escaped the humiliation of having to give up seats to alliance partners and reducing its footprint across India. It would now rather focus on reviving itself or at least keeping itself afloat till the Modi juggernaut stops moving. In the face of its own existential crisis, wrecking opposition unity may be a charge that the party perhaps thinks will have generous pardons in history.
Now, circle back to what Sharad Pawar said after Mamata propped up Kharge’s name. He said there was no need for the opposition to project a face. This quite punctured Nitish Kumar’s ambition and snubbed Mamata’s enthusiasm but held up the Congress game. To substantiate, Pawar said Morarji Desai was nowhere in the picture when he became prime minister in 1977. But in a convenient application of memory, he forgot to say that in 1977 ideologically diverse opposition parties had shown unprecedented commitment to merge and fight on a single symbol. Jayaprakash Narayan was the face and moral authority of that election which saw the defeat of Indira Gandhi.
Amid half-truths and manoeuvring, the news that Janata Dal (United) may implode in Bihar demands a factcheck. There is also inspired gossip that Nitish Kumar may swing again and be back in the BJP alliance. Lalu Yadav, they say, wants his son in the chief minister’s saddle before the national polls. Everything suddenly sounds so strange for the opposition.
(Views are personal)
Sugata Srinivasaraju, Senior journalist and author of The Politics and Predicaments of Rahul Gandhi
(sugata@sugataraju.in)