[ad_1]
on June 23 Senior opposition leaders will meet in Patna To start discussions about forming a broad front against BJP. For many parties, this is a necessary political alliance in light of the crucial Lok Sabha elections next year. For opponents of some – such as Arvind Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar and Sharad Pawar – it marks yet another turn on their part in the art of political and personal adequacy.
They point back on sunday to Ramlila Maidan in Delhi by Kejriwal, this time to demonstrate against the Center’s decree to control services in the national capital where MP Rajya Sabha and former Congress Union Minister Kabul Sibal were sitting next to him. As Congress leader, Sibal was one of the prominent names in Delhi Chief Minister’s list and ‘corrupt’ list put out by AAP.
During the early years of Anna Hazare’s agitation, of which Kejriwal was an important part, and thereafter, the AAP compilation of these names went on a long stretch. Another matter that Kejriwal will continue to “apologize” to most is to get out of defamation cases, including to Sibal and his son Amit. (Kejriwal accused Amit of conflict of interest, saying he appeared in court on behalf of a telecom company while his father was telecoms minister.)
Other leaders dubbed “corrupt” Kejriwal include Rahul Gandhi, several United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ministers, late Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and NCP leader Farooq Abdullah. As part of his efforts to unite the opposition against the Center Decree now, he met Pawar and Mulayam’s son Kejriwal and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Kejriwal has also done his share of somersaults fighting the BJP on both the Nationalist and Hindutva fronts. When the BJP government revoked Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, dividing the state into two union territories, the AAP was one of the most vocal in favor of the move.
Last week, National Congress leader Omar Abdullah raised this to suggest that the National Congress cannot be part of a common opposition front.
In fact, Nitish Kumar, the host of the secret meeting showcasing this unit, is himself an accomplished political trapeze artist, adept at swinging from side to side and yet landing on his feet. He remained in power to shift his alliances from the BJP to the opposition to the BJP, and back again.
Then there is Pawar, Ex-Mr. and Survivor who has called the shots at center for years now, though numbers have dropped under his leadership. While proving glue in the Maha Vikas Agadi alliance in Maharashtra, the NCP chief keeps enough room open to ensure friends and foes stay on edge.
Another opposition star at the secret meeting will be Mamata Banerjee, the president of the Trinamool Congress, whose hot-and-cold relationship with Congress means no one can be sure where she will eventually turn.
Finally, there is the Congress itself which, in a heart of hearts, will find it very difficult to concede the space of the prima donna to any other party. Politics of necessity may have forced it to take a secondary place in Tamil Nadu (to DMK), Jharkhand (JMM), Maharashtra (NCP and Uddhav Shiv Sena), Bihar (JD-U and RJD) and West Bengal (left) – not counting Uttar State Pradesh, where it’s hard to find friends – but the real test will be in other states.
So while one joint candidate against the BJP on each seat might look very promising on paper, this would run into problems almost immediately.
If some Congress leaders are to be believed, the party would like unity discussions to continue until the end of the year, when elections are held in four key states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana – where no parties are already standing. Between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. And as congressional leaders argue, doing well in this election will increase the negotiating power of the old party.
Perhaps for the same reason, many regional players are keen to come up with a broad framework as soon as possible.
Two other parties largely occupy the opposition space but have so far refrained from placing their bets on one horse – K Chandrashekar Rao of Bharat Rashtra Samithra and Mayawati of BSP.
In the past year, KCR has gone from being a neutral brooder to a scathing BJP escort to a wary wait-and-see attitude now. Mayawati, after her major fall in Uttar Pradesh, only appears once in a while to make a statement, before disappearing again.
[ad_2]
