Has ‘Opposition Unity’ Lost Its Spark’? AAP, TMC Take on Congress Before Patna Meeting, Others Avoid
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), two significant opposition parties, have now engaged the Congress in combat in the past three days, casting doubt on the broader opposition unity that is being tried with the June 23 summit in Patna.
At a rally on Sunday in Rajasthan, where AAP intends to make a good showing in the state polls later this year, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal took aim at the Congress and Rajasthan’s chief minister, Ashok Gehlot. The Congress has yet to publicly declare its support for the AAP on the Centre-brought ordinance. Kejriwal has also been unable to schedule a meeting with Rahul Gandhi. Mamata Bannerjee, the leader of the TMC, had issued a warning three days before, stating that if the Congress continues to support the Left in West Bengal, she would not support it.
On June 23, in Patna, where Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is aiming to forge an ambitious “opposition unity formula” against the BJP, Kejriwal and Banerjee are anticipated to face off with Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and Sitaram Yechury.
Senior AAP officials claim that their party is present in twelve states and that they want to challenge both the Congress and the BJP in the next elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. As a result, it may run afoul of the Congress, which would accuse it of divvying up votes.
State interest percentage
Given that they oppose the Congress in the states, three more opposition parties—the Telangana Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), the Andhra Pradesh Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and the Odisha Biju Janata Dal (BJD)—have so far opted not to attend the June 23 Patna summit. In reality, the BRS, whose leader K Chandrasekhar Rao recently said that the Congress should be tossed in the Bay of Bengal, would be competing against the BJP and the Congress in the Telangana state elections later this year. Prior to the Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP is said to be considering renewing the coalition with the BJP.
Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister of Odisha, did meet Nitish Kumar in May while the latter was traveling across the nation to rally opposition forces, but it appears difficult to reach an agreement with the Congress given that the BJD will be up against the Congress in the state elections, which could coincide with the Lok Sabha elections. Patnaik has never straddled either the BJP or the Congress. A significant opposition figure from Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh was not invited to the Patna summit.
In other words, the opposition may find it difficult to agree to Nitish Kumar’s “one seat, one opposition candidate” formula in six crucial states, including West Bengal, Punjab, Delhi, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh, which together control close to 125 Lok Sabha seats. After the victory in Karnataka, it will be on to the Congress to reach a “wider understanding” and refrain from acting like a snoop on June 23.
