WITH little over a year left until general elections, the much anticipated opposition unity still remains a mirage. However, the recent weeks have witnessed some fresh stirrings to this end with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar urging Congress to take a lead in uniting the opposition for 2024 national polls. He said if all opposition parties were to unite, the BJP would get less than 100 seats in the election. Congress, in its response, has asserted its importance and indispensability to an opposition alliance. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh has said that no alliance in the opposition can be successful without their inclusion. The party’s plenary will discuss the necessary alliances for the upcoming state assembly polls as well as the 2024 election.
But an opposition alliance is far from materializing. True, the opposition looks to have found its bearings but it has to go a long way before it gets counted as a competitor to the BJP. One good thing is that Congress president Rahul Gandhi has shown some promise to rise up to the political challenge, even though his image makeover is still a project in works. As his recently concluded padyatra underlined, his speeches now carry more conviction. He has paid attention to his communication style: he now frames his arguments in a way that generate a bigger ideological contestation with the BJP– albeit, he still has a long way to go to match the prime minister Narendra Modi’s overarching ideological challenge. It is true that the yatra has generated immense goodwill for Congress and Gandhi but the political ground is still far from shifting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to be the unstoppable and all-powerful leader, and no other national leader, let alone Gandhi, comes close.
Also, Congress in its current shrunken state seems no match for the BJP. And that too at a time when Congress faces tough competition even from the AAP which is trying to fill in the political space vacated by the former. With its landslide victory in Punjab last year, the AAP shows promise. It hopes to replicate the performance in other states. Arvind Kejriwal has exhibited political smarts to get his party up and running out of nowhere.
But there is still one year to go before the general elections are held, and much can change during this period. One year is a long time in politics. As things stand, only a combined opposition could be expected to take on the BJP. Gandhi has also been trying to forge opposition unity but there are only feeble indications that he has had any success in the endeavour. It won’t be easy to bring all the opposition parties together on one platform, more so, with several regional leaders nursing their personal ambitions. But for now Congress can take heart from Gandhi’s successful yatra and hope to build on it. And hope that some sort a loose political alliance comes along in the near future.
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