Opinion: Patna conclave is no 1977

Opposition parties need the presence of a statesman like Jayaprakash Narayan among them

By Amitava Mukherjee

The name of Jayaprakash Narayan always crops up whenever there are talks about opposition unity. But the problem is Jayaprakash was an idealist titan and after his demise, there is no titan in the Indian sociopolitical arena. In the recently concluded opposition parties’ conclave in Patna, there were two people whose political rise was mentored by Jayaprakash Narayan — Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav. But compared to the venerable Jayaprakash, these two are mere pygmies. Nitish Kumar has a unique record of changing sides. And then there was Lalu Prasad Yadav — well, everybody knows about him.

---

So, Mamata Banerjee should have thought twice before taking the name of Jayaprakash Narayan and contextualising the great freedom fighter’s name in relation to the opposition’s meet in Patna. JP fought for a cause — the cause of rescuing democracy from the clutches of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. What are the causes and ideals the 16 opposition parties who met in Patna are putting forward before the people of India?

Comparing 1977

The only time in recent history, when India witnessed a unity of opposition parties, was in 1977 when Jayaprakash Narayan brought together several parties against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. But that happened on a touchstone of principle and policy. Just remember the names who were at the forefront of the struggle against Indira and her Congress — Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Madhu Limaye, George Fernandes, Madhu Dandavate, Nanaji Deshmukh etc. None of them was burdened with any corruption charge. None of the principal opposition political parties — the Congress(O), the Jan Sangh or the Socialists — was troubled by internal dissension. Moreover, very few of the principal political lights from the opposition groups could be charged with political turncoatism.

Here lies the Achilles Heel of the present grouping which met in Patna and is intending to meet in Shimla in the near future. Sharad Pawar and his Nationalist Congress Party is strongly rumoured to be suffering from an internal tussle between Supriya Sule and Ajit Pawar.

Mamata Banerjee’s stewardship as the Chief Minister of West Bengal is under a long shadow. Almost the entire leading functionaries of her department of education are in jail under corruption charges. So much so that she had to appoint a new Education Minister as the former one is now behind bars. In Bihar, Lalu’s RJD is now in power in collaboration with the Janata Dal (United). But corruption stigma is there.

Geographical Picture

Let us look at the geographical picture. The opposition is on a solid bedrock only in Bihar. Mayawati was absent from the meeting. Her performance in the last Uttar Pradesh Assembly election may have been poor. But that does not mean that Behenji has lost all of her caste support. Who can say that she will not split anti-BJP votes in at least 30 seats in the 2024 parliamentary election? More important, Akhilesh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party are now only faded shadows of their past selves.

The opposition has made a bad start by not being able to rope in Naveen Patnaik of Odisha, Jaganmohan Reddy or Chandrababu Naidu from Andhra Pradesh and K Chandrashekhar Rao from Telangana. Large swathes of land from the country’s eastern and southern parts remain left out of the opposition’s influence. Just the DMK in Tamil Nadu will not be able to make much difference in the final electoral calculations.

In Telangana, not only the BJP but the Congress too is trying to cross Chandrashekhar Rao’s path. The latter’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi has all-India ambitions and under no circumstances the Telangana Chief Minister is expected to allow any space to a conglomeration where the Congress is one of the principal partners.

In addition, a piquant situation will arise in Kerala too where the Congress and the CPM are involved in a ding-dong battle. The electoral scenario in Kerala will become more confusing as the BJP is trying to endear itself to the minority Christian community among whom the Congress has a good following. If the Congress feels threatened in this segment of the electorate then it will naturally try to poach from among traditional Left voters. Will the CPM tolerate this?

Rebellious Proposition

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) remains a rebellious proposition. Don’t think that the tiff between the AAP and the Congress is only the outcome of the latter’s refusal to commit itself publicly and in advance in opposing the Ordinance that the central government has promulgated in matters of the Delhi administration. It is basically a war of area domination. Still, the Congress cannot reconcile itself to the reality that it has lost Delhi and Punjab to AAP and is on the way to losing its political base in Haryana to Arvind Kejriwal’s party. Moreover, AAP is showing all the potentialities to use soft Hindutva for countering the BJP, a trait the Congress is desperately trying to master over the years.

The opposition leaders are speaking of releasing some sort of a manifesto in the near future. This has to be radically different from the policies of the BJP. So far, as economic thinking is concerned, there is very little to differentiate between the BJP and the Congress. Both have fallen for economic laissez-faire. How will the CPM reconcile itself to such a policy? Perhaps Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav will also have reservations about it.

History shows that the Congress has always viewed the question of federalism from the standpoint of its own existence. It considers itself as the only political force that can hold India together and is, therefore, chary of granting too much space to regional parties although ground realities suggest that ‘one party centred federal structure’ has become outdated in India.

For solving all these conundrums, the opposition parties need the presence of a statesman among them. Alas! There is no such person in sight.