Opposition Weak After Prez Polls, But Will Have to Unite by 2019

The Opposition might be a divided house for now but will come together to fight against Modi in 2019.

Cross voting by non-NDA MLAs across eight states in the just concluded presidential poll has served to reinforce BJP’s narrative of a disunited opposition. Indeed, the optics were rather unfavourable as NDA President-elect Ram Nath Kovind polled around 2 percent more votes than he was slated to get.

Ironically, the setback of the presidential poll only seems to have sharpened the Opposition’s desperation to forge a united front to take on Narendra Modi in 2019. Unity has become a driving compulsion in the face of a sustained onslaught by the Modi-Shah juggernaut to obliterate the Opposition before 2019 by fair means or foul.

Opposition Unity

• While cross-voting embarrassed the Opposition, an important development was Sonia Gandhi trying to hammer out a truce between Nitish and Lalu
  
• A Mahagathbandhan-like alliance is in place with Mayawati expected to contest from Phulpur as a joint candidate of Cong-SP-BSP
  
• By-election for the Phulpur Lok Sabha seat will test the mettle of Bihar-like alliance in UP
  
• History of opposition unity reveals that disparate groups with differing ideologies come together out of sheer compulsion
  
• The Opposition might be a divided house for now, but non-BJP and non-NDA parties will join hands to fight Modi in 2019
  

Sonia, the Peacemaker

The hype around Kovind’s win obscured two small, but significant, moves for unity even as the Opposition scattered in different directions for the presidential election. One was Sonia Gandhi’s personal intervention to hammer out a truce between warring Bihar allies Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav.

At her prodding, Nitish and Lalu’s sons Tejaswi and Tej Pratap smoked the peace pipe in a closed door meeting also attended by Congress state chief Ashok Chaudhary.

For the moment then, despite the BJP’s best efforts, the mahagathbandhan or Grand Alliance survives, as does the Bihar government. But only just, because there will definitely be a fresh offensive by the BJP to break the alliance.

Mayawati May Contest from Phulpur Seat

The second development was Mayawati’s unexpected resignation from the Rajya Sabha. Whether or not some thought went into it before she flounced out of the Upper House in anger over not being allowed to complete her speech on Dalit atrocities in BJP-ruled states, a subsequent exchange of back channel feelers has thrown up an interesting proposal.

According to well-placed political sources, there is a suggestion to field Mayawati as a joint candidate of a BSP-SP-Congress alliance from Phulpur whenever the by-election for this Lok Sabha seat is announced.

It will most probably be in December along with the assembly polls in Gujarat.

The Phulpur seat is currently held by UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. He will have to resign by September and seek election to the state assembly.

If all three parties agree, Mayawati would be the pivot to test the viability of a Bihar-like Grand Alliance in UP in preparation for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. This is just an idea at the moment.

Much will depend on the contours of the political landscape, both nationally and in UP, when the by-election is announced.

Also Read: Fear of Political Sanyas Spurred Mayawati’s Resignation from RS

History of Opposition Unity

All this flurry of activity suggests that the Opposition has not rolled over and died as the BJP would have us believe.

Yes, a united opposition front on the lines of the Janata Party which defeated Indira Gandhi in 1977 or a Janata Dal-led National Front that whittled down Rajiv Gandhi’s massive 400 plus majority to less than 200 in 1989 is nowhere in sight. Yet.

But as the history of opposition unity reveals, disparate groups with differing ideologies tend to join forces only on election-eve out of sheer compulsion to fight the political giant overwhelming them.

The Janata Party was formed at the last minute after Indira Gandhi lifted Emergency and announced elections. The Janata Dal was born in October 1988, just a year before Rajiv Gandhi called the fateful polls that edged him out of power.

Also Read: Is Nitish Stretching His Risk-Taking Ability a Bit Too Far?

Fear Haunts the Opposition

Today, the Opposition is not just David to the BJP’s Goliath. It is fighting for its very survival as the BJP puts into action a plan Amit Shah had announced back in 2014 when he took over as party president. He had talked of the BJP ruling India “from Kashmir to Kanyakumari”’.

There is nothing objectionable about the ambition to become what the Congress was six decades ago. But the BJP’s sledgehammer tactics as it goes about fulfilling its ambition has frightened the Opposition into seeing the threat from the BJP as much more than a simple political challenge.

Paranoia has set in among opposition leaders that the Modi-Shah duo intends to annihilate them before 2019 to clear the path to victory of all obstacles.

Today, virtually all opposition leaders and their parties have a Damocles sword hanging over them in the form of CBI, ED or income tax cases. In fact, one Trinamool Congress leader admitted wryly that if the agencies were to arrest all those named in the three scandals haunting the party, Narada, Saradha and Rose Valley, almost 60 percent of its MLAs would be behind bars.

Also Read: Monsoon Session: BJP’s Divide & Rule Policy Will Hurt Opposition

Gearing Up for 2019 Polls

There is no doubt that the wanton behaviour of opposition leaders when in power has left them vulnerable to charges of corruption. But never have government investigative agencies pursued cases against the Opposition in such a sustained and ruthless manner.

Lalu and his family, BJD MLAs in Odisha, Mayawati and her brother, the Marans of the DMK, the Gandhis of course, Sasikala and her aides… the list is endless and covers the entire political spectrum except the Left.

If Lalu readily embraced Nitish who ousted him with the BJP’s help, if Mayawati is ready to join hands with Akhilesh even though he is the son of the man she hates the most, if the Congress under the Gandhis is readying to give up leadership of a united opposition and play the low-key role of a facilitator instead, it underlines the extent to which the BJP has spooked them with its ruthless and aggressive pursuit.

No matter how tattered the Opposition is looking after the presidential poll, there is every reason to believe that the non-BJP and non-NDA parties will have no option but to join hands to fight Modi in 2019, even if it means ceding political space to accommodate those who were once opponents.

Also Read: Opposition in Tatters: Cross-Voting Helps BJP Record Kovind’s Win

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)