New leader !

 

THE last few days have seen a lot of rumblings about leadership change in the Opposition camp -- which actually does not surprise any political observer or even common people. Thanks to Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s massive under-performance and lop-sided thinking, the talk of change in the name at the helm was only a natural consequence. That talk is now zeroing in on the name of Ms. Mamata Banerjee, the feisty chief of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Chief Minister of West Bengal. Even as Opposition leaders such as Mr. Akhilesh Yadav or Mr. Sharad Pawar started talking about the possibility of Ms. Banerjee’s leadership, she also has indicated her willingness to accept the role -- insisting that the Opposition camp needed to start picking up issues of public importance rather than the personal fancy of the Congress leader Mr. Rahul Gandhi, such as the alleged nexus between industrial tycoon Mr. Gautam Adani and Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and his coterie.

 

During the ongoing session of Parliament, while the Congress party laid complete emphasis on the so-called Modi-Adani nexus, other Opposition parties wanted to shift the focus to other issues -- which the Congress refused to agree with. Hence the problem at the top in the Opposition camp. Of course, it must be stated with emphasis that the Opposition appears to have woken up to the reality of a failed leadership of its camp rather belatedly. It should have thought of change a long back -- possibly before the Lok Sabha elections in which the Opposition could not stop Mr. Narendra Modi from forming the Government. That failure was mainly due to the Opposition narrative that succeeded only partially. That realm of failure continued during the wave of legislative elections, as well, possibly necessitating the talk of change of leadership of the Opposition camp now displaying clear fault-lines among its rank and file.

 

There should be no doubt that the Congress party would never accept any such change. It would prefer getting out of the grouping rather than accommodating somebody other than Mr. Rahul Gandhi as the leader. But such obstinacy would only kill whatever might have remained in the name of Opposition unity. The Congress leadership would never agree that the failure of the Opposition camp was mainly due to its own failings on multiple counts. Factually, however, the so-called unity was only for name’s sake as many parties -- such as the TMC -- were fighting elections on their own with no accommodation offered to other constituents of the Opposition camp. Such approach had already started busting what had come to be called ‘I.N.D.I.Alliance’. Even though the grouping had been formed to counter the Modi-juggernaut in the Lok Sabha elections, it had started cracking even before the country went to polls. The first crack came when its convener Mr. Nitish Kumar changed sides.

 

And then came the refusal of TMC to contest Lok Sabha polls in tandem with the Congress and the Communists. Similar issues cropped between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. With I.N.D.I. Alliance virtually having been busted, what has remained in the grouping is only an apology to unity with most constituent parties pulling things in different directions and working at cross purposes from one another. Now that the name of Ms. Mamata Banerjee is getting thrown up in internal discussions and external statements, the Opposition grouping finds itself in a limbo. In the next some months, the grouping, thus, may see its own end almost officially. If that happens, the predictions of many observers of domestic politics would come true. When there is an ideological disunity and tactical cross-purpose, then there could be no other fate for a loose political front.