RAJ DALUJA
JAMMU: After dumping Rahul Gandhi in the prime ministerial race by pre-empting and proposing Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge as the candidate of INDI Alliance, the West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has struck again. This time around her prey is none other than Nitesh Kumar, who is being projected as the Convener of the Alliance, as a last ditch effort to keep the anti Narendra Modi brigade together.
What is prompting Mamata Banerjee to provoke and hammer the amalgam of ‘North Pole South Pole’ allies that has been unable to firm up any strategy to counter the BJP in 2024 general elections? But for ‘removing Modi’ agenda they have nothing in common-neither the ideology nor the strategy-to make a formidable flock, least of all an alternative to the two-time Prime Minister.
Akhilesh Yadav’s new salvo
Struggling to show a semblance of unity, INDI Alliance got yet another shocker from Akhilesh Yadav, seeking seat sharing before the commencement of Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Nyay Yatra’ from Manipur to Mumbai on January 14. Seen as a subtle attempt to foil the Congress’s desperate bid to market Rahul Gandhi yet again as its frontal choice against Narendra Modi, the Uttar Pradesh ally doesn’t appear to be in a mood to forget or forgive what he encountered from Kamalnath and company barely 7-8 weeks ago. Everyone in the INDI Alliance wants to have his last laugh.
INDI Alliance is an ‘innovation’ where everyone wants to become the Prime Minister, no matter whether he or she has his or her support base restricted to own state or a part of the state. Mamata is unacceptable beyond West Bengal so is Sharad Pawar restricted to a part of Maharashtra. Nitish Kumar is almost nowhere in his home state of Bihar while Mayawati is a spent force in Uttar Pradesh like her political bête noire Akhlish Yadav. Arvind Kejriwal has been dreaming big after Aam Aadmi Party gained the stature of a national party by registering victory in Punjab and bagging the requisite number of votes in the Gujarat Assembly elections. Thereafter, plagued with charges of corruption and top leaders rehabilitating Tihar Jail, the AAP’s political stock is dwindling. So are the ambitions of Kejriwal. In the recently held elections to three state assemblies, AAP fielded 65 candidates in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly polls and but for two, 63 candidates out of 65 contestants lost their deposits. Similarly in the 199 seat Rajasthan assembly, the party fielded 85 candidates, who, except one, lost their deposits while none of the 54 AAP candidates managed to save deposits in the 90 member legislative assembly of Chattisgarh. In these three states, AAP didn’t win even a single seat. The party got less votes than NOTA. Kejriwal is currently struggling to remain out of jail for alleged acts of omission and commission.
In such a scenario, the INDI Alliance allies are convinced that facing the Modi juggernaut in 2024 will be no less a nightmare. Their primary thrust, therefore, is to retain whatever they had got in the 2019 to save the face and the future of governments in their respective states. This is the motivation for Mamata to cut the Congress to size by sabotaging every attempt of ‘unity’. Trinamool Congress is on a slippery wicket in West Bengal having won 22 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 general elections against whooping 18 by the BJP and just 2 by the Congress. Communists drew blank in those elections. Facing tough challenge by the BJP, Mamata will not be in a position to share seats with the alliance partners, which is why Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is using choicest invectives against the ruling Trinamool leaders in Kolkata. The position with the AAP is no different. Having won none of the seven seats in Delhi and just one out 13 in Punjab during 2019 polls, AAP hopes to reap more seats after making a big in the assembly elections and forming the government. AAP has made its plans open not to share seats with the alliance partners, least with the grand old party, as Bhagwat Mann keeps mocking, saying that mothers will be telling their children one day, “Ek Thi Congress”.
Akhilesh Yadav-Kamalnath spat during Madhya Pradesh assembly elections has created a deep wedge between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party and later is in no mood to have state sharing in Uttar Pradesh.
BSP wants to align with the INDI Alliance only if Mayawati is declared as the PM face in 2024. Kashmir’s PDP and the NC have just the value of cheer-leaders. The two parties want to remain glued to the INDI Alliance to reap whatever they can in case Modi is defeated, which, of course, remains their primary agenda.
The Congress scions Rahul and Priyanka were bowled out by Mamata Banerjee with the ‘limited over match’ beginning in December by proposing Kharge.
Kejriwal had readily and immediately seconded, perhaps as per the strategy evolved by the two chief ministers a day ahead in the national capital. This left the Congress president sulking with the prospect of High Command, say Gandhis getting annoyed. In the backdrop of arm twisting and playing hide and seek, the deadline of reaching a seat sharing formula by INDI Alliance has just elapsed without anything tangible in sight.
