Wednesday News

Last week in my blog, I had written about Non BJP/Non congress parties are trying very hard  for uniting  opposition parties for next general elections. Yesterday Sonia Gandhi invited many opposition leaders for dinner, this meet was for chalking out the strategy for the next  general elections. The meet was attended by the following leaders

Sharad Pawar and Tariq Anwar of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)

Sandip Bandopadhya of Trinamool Congress (TMC)

Tejashwi Yadav and Misa Bharti( son and daughter of Laloo Prasad Yadav) of  (RJD)

Omar Abdullah of National Conference(NC)

Kanimozhi of DMK

Ajit Singh of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD)

Ram Gopal Yadav of SP

Satish Chandra Mishra fof BSP

Jiten Ram Manjhi of Hindustani Awami Morcha

Babulal Marandi of Jharkhand Vikas Morcha(Prajatantrik)

Sharad Yadav of  Bhartiya Tribal Party

Mohd Salim of CPM & D Raja of CPI

Hemant Soren of JMM

Badrudin Ajmal of  all India United front

Jose K Mani of  Kerala Congress (Mani)

D Janardhan Reddy of Janata Dal Secular

NK Premachandran of RSP

PK Kunhalikutty 0f  Indian Union Muslim League

Congress party was represented by Sonia & Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh,Ghulam Nabi Azad, AK Anthony, Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjun Kharge and Randeep Singh Surjewala.

If you observe the list of attendees, barring NCP, SP, BSP and TMC the other parties are having no value at present in the Indian Polity. The other parties are not holding even 4% of total Lok Sabha Seats.

The other Non BJP Parties who are still not ready to align with Congress are TDP, Shiv Sena, Biju Janata Dal, AIADMK, Telangana Rashtriya Samiti and new parties of Kamal Hasan and Rajanikanth in Tamilnadu. Although technically TDP and Shiv Sena are still part of NDA but indications are they may not align with BJP in next elections.

Now I do not know how  this opposition unity will  materialise  and to what extent they will succeed. Including Congress there are 19 parties in the above list and presently they do not hold more than 20% of seats . Shiv Sena and others as mentioned above also holds  20% of sets. BJP holds little above 50% of sets and balance 10% are held by allies of BJP and some small unattached parties. So with 20% of sets held by them presently , Congress is dreaming of capturing more than 50% of seats, seems to be far fetched idea, but any thing is possible in Indian Politics. Today seems to have given indications to opposition parties that if they unite this thing is achievable, as shown in By Poll in UP, where SP and  BSP supported each other and results are  indicating that BJP is losing both the seats. But the problem still lies with Congress, as in these UP elections Congress is in distant third position. The real issue is Congress’s position in some states like Bihar, UP , Bengal, Tamilnadu is so bad that the regional leaders are not ready to work under Congress’s leadership, which may become liability for them.It will be better for Congress that they should play a role of junior partner in those states where there presence  is not a major force, and so instead of forging opposition unity at national level they should form opposition unity at state level, but in this scenario Congress will always be playing a role of junior partner because most of the states they are not there. So  presently Congress leadership lacks the national presence. It is history that whenever opposition unity is at the peak then ruling party loses, but for that you need a  dynamic leader who can inspire opposition to come together, this quality was present in Jai Prakash Narayan in 1977 , when he brought opposition together to defeat Congress. But in the present scenario I can not see Sonia or Rahul Gandhi  having the same quality which can inspire the other parties.

Now let us see how many leaders from other parties have joined recently

Himanta Biswa Sarma- he left Congress in Aug 2015. He was delivered several  north eastern states to BJP, and has emerged as BJP’s top leader of this region.

Rita Bahuguna- She left Congress in Oct 2016, presently she is minister in UP Govt of BJP.

Swami Prasad Maurya- A 5 time MLA of BSP, left the party in Aug 2016 and presently he is also minister in BJP’s govt in UP.

Vijay Bahuguna- a 2 time Lok Sabha member of Congress and ex CM of  Himachal. He joined the BJP in May 2016.

SM Krishan-After spending 50 years in Congress, he joined BJP in Mar 2017. He is known as one of the clean politicians of Karnataka, and is ex CM of the state.

Mukul Roy-  A  founding member of TMC, he joined BJP in Nov 2017.

Birender Singh- A Congress politician from Haryana, he joined BJP in Aug  2014 and elected to Rajya Sabha on BJP ticket and presently he is part of Union Ministry.

Suresh Prabhu- He was cabinet minister in earlier NDA govt , as representative of Shiv Sena. Modi selected him as ministerial candidate in 2014. He joined BJP in Nov 2014.

Other leaders who have joined BJP are Narayan Rane(earlier NCP),  Naresh Agarwal (SP) and Ashok Bajpai (SP) , all of them are given Rajya Sabha ticket for the polls on Mar 23, 2018.

The political leaders mentioned above, all of them joined BJP after 2014 general elections.

So friends, at one side leaders from various political parties  are joining BJP and other side there is talk of opposition unity. I do not know what  to deduce from these incidents. Only time will reveal in future, in which way tide will turn.

Waiting for your feed backs/views/comments.