Ahead of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s three-day visit to Delhi, ask the BJP camp about the importance of the trip and they would point you to the stage in Bengaluru three years ago in 2018 when Sonia Gandhi, Mayawati and Mamata Banerjee stood together in ‘unity’.
The occasion was the swearing-in of HD Kumaraswamy as Karnataka chief minister attended by a galaxy of opposition leaders, from the Gandhis, to Mayawati, Sharad Pawar, Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav. “What happened to the so-called unity after the famous Sonia-Mayawati embrace and many projecting Mayawati as a challenger to the PM? It did not even last six months till the 2018 elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh when Mayawati contested against the Congress,” a senior BJP minister says.
That ‘PM challenger’ spot of Mayawati now seems to have been taken over by Mamata Banerjee who buoyed by her big win in West Bengal lately is attempting to head a bigger opposition camp in 2024 against Modi.
Old wine in a new bottle, Congress aversion to playing second fiddle to any opposition party, inherent contradictions in a large opposition alliance with temperamental leaders, the Congress itself being a rudderless divided house so far including in the states it runs, and no other leader having a pan-India popularity like Narendra Modi – these are the factors the BJP camp cite to downplay the Banerjee factor.
What goes for Mamata, What not?
In Mamata Banerjee, one has an aggressive leader with a penchant to take on Narendra Modi in no uncertain terms. The West Bengal win showed she can stand her own in face of the massive BJP machinery. An unspoken understanding with the Congress in the state elections is seen as a stepping stone to a larger understanding at the national level.
In her key confidante in Prashant Kishor, Banerjee also has a player with enviable connections across opposition parties and who can probably deliver a more cohesive pact than one attempted by opposition parties in 2018 in the run-up to the last Lok Sabha polls. Kishor has already had detailed meetings with Pawar and the Gandhis.
But BJP also has a long list of counter-arguments of why Banerjee’s challenge won’t work. A major one, another senior BJP leader told News18, is the aversion of the Congress cadre to accept anyone else but Rahul Gandhi as the ‘PM challenger’, especially so from another opposition party. The other is lack of pan-India acceptability of Banerjee, especially in the Hindi-speaking belt, quite opposite to that of Modi. “Will the Congress risk surrendering its space to another opposition party, like it has in Uttar Pradesh or in Bihar?” the BJP leader asked.
BJP points to the implosion in Congress leadership in its states like Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, to ask how the party will manage a myriad understanding with multiple other parties when it cannot manage its own house.
The Uttar Pradesh Test
BJP leaders said any opposition understanding against Modi will stand to test during the biggest election before 2024, in Uttar Pradesh next year. So far, the Samajwadi Party, BSP and Congress have all said they will contest elections independently without an alliance, which puts the BJP in a pole position so far. “A national opposition understanding is being spoken about with Banerjee as the pivot but opposition parties are still unable to stitch an alliance in UP. It shows the dichotomy in the entire opposition arena,” a senior BJP functionary in the state said.
Congress insistence on getting a ‘respectable’ share in seats in such alliances in states has proved to be a bane in the past. Like the RJD suffered in the last Bihar elections after giving a high number of seats to the Congress, which cost the RJD dearly, while Samajwadi Party went through the same pain by giving over 100 seats to the Congress in an alliance in 2017 in Uttar Pradesh. This is in fact what is stopping any opposition alliance to take shape in UP this time.
“A big win in Uttar Pradesh for the BJP will take the wind out of the opposition sails and the so-called attempts at unity,” the BJP leader said.
TMC and Congress cite people’s “growing disappointment with Modi” over the handling of Covid and inflation especially in fuel prices as the springing board for a larger understanding ahead of 2024 against Modi. But BJP thinks the ambitions on either side, the TMC and the Congress, will prove to be their bane ultimately.
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