Not quite on same page yet

Arati R Jerath
political commentator

The Congress got a bitter taste of the challenges ahead as cracks appeared in Opposition unity at the final sitting of the 16th Lok Sabha before the 2019 General Election. The corridors of Parliament reverberated the entire day with rumblings about the Congress’ ‘arrogance’ and its ‘big brother attitude’. Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress MPs were furious because the Congress MP from West Bengal, Adhir Ranjan Chaudhury, chose the last day of the Modi government’s closing session to lambast the party on the Saradha chit fund scam.

Samajwadi Party MPs were angry because the Congress did not support their protest over the fracas in UP in which several workers, including some MPs, were beaten up by the police after the authorities prevented Akhilesh Yadav from going to Allahabad.

The final blow came from SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav who told the Lok Sabha that he wanted to see Narendra Modi back as Prime Minister. He said this with Sonia Gandhi sitting next to him. She looked away in embarrassment because she had just delivered a fiery speech criticising the Modi government’s policies. 

Although Sharad Pawar managed to repair much of the damage with an impromptu dinner at his residence the same evening, he was helped by the fact that by then Rahul Gandhi had grasped the importance of being humble and reaching out with a healing touch. The Congress president readily broke bread with sworn rival Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party and irate Mamata Banerjee, who had earlier in the day, warned Sonia Gandhi that she will remember the insult from the Congress.

If reports about the dinner conversation are any indication, it would seem that Rahul has come down to earth with a bump and realised that the ekla chalo signals from his party’s recent combative language are disturbing the equilibrium and could end up fracturing a united Opposition fight against Modi and the BJP. Apparently, there was an in-principle agreement at the dinner on a pre-poll alliance and a common minimum programme to give the Opposition a shared narrative. 

It took a near-breakdown in Opposition unity to put these two vital pillars of an anti-Modi front on the table for discussion. For a long time now, regional leaders have been chaffing at the lack of initiative by the Congress to bring the non-BJP Opposition together in a structured form. 

The mood became fractious after the Congress snatched three Hindi heartland states away from the BJP in the last round of the Assembly elections. Instead of being spurred by the victories and getting down to business with potential friends and allies, the Congress put on airs and developed an inflated idea of its strength.

The entry of Priyanka Vadra into the UP battlefield only reaffirmed the fears of the regional satraps. The Congress seemed to be in aggressive mode, ready to go solo in states like UP and Bengal, where till recently, it had wanted a pre-poll understanding with state parties. 

The flurry of activity after the kerfuffle in Parliament suggests that there may be a rethink of sorts. After taking one step forward, the Congress seems to have taken two steps backwards. And here lies the dilemma for the party. How does it walk the fine line between party interest and the larger Opposition interest?

Consider the task ahead. It has to be battle ready to take on the BJP in states where it is in a direct fight (like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat). This means using combative language, boosting the morale of its workers, convincing voters that the party has not rolled over and died, reasserting the Congress identity and so on.

At the same time, it has to accommodate regional partners in other states, even at the cost of surrendering political space. It has to do this without giving the impression that it has bowed to state satraps and reduced itself to one among equals instead of being the pivot of an Opposition alliance. This is particularly important if it wants to win back the middle classes from the BJP. This vote looks for a strong party that can manage fissiparous tendencies that small and caste-based parties introduce in any coalition. 

It’s a formidable challenge for a party like the Congress which has not lost belief in its divine right to rule, despite its virtual decimation in large swathes of the country and the severe beating it has taken from serial election defeats. Yet, the onus of cobbling together a cohesive anti-Modi front that looks capable of a spirited fight lies with the Congress. It is after all the larger party and the only national party among a flock of regional ones. 

Even as the Congress learns to bend without crawling, other Opposition leaders, too, have a responsibility. The efforts to build unity can succeed only in a spirit of give and take, of accommodation and empathy from both sides.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee created a framework for a successful multi-party coalition. He showed that regular communication, consensus building and flexibility were key hallmarks of running an alliance that often pulled in different directions. Although he had interlocutors for all his partners, he never hesitated to pick up the phone and talk personally when the need arose.

Perhaps Rahul Gandhi and the Congress could learn a lesson or two from Vajpayee’s NDA as they work to put together an alliance of parties for whom the BJP is a common enemy. The ball is in their court.