Opposition leaders’ Patna meet catapults Kharge to prime spot

The stupendous task of steering the unity moves of diverse Opposition parties has inadvertently fallen upon the shoulders of the new Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge though he is relatively a new player at the Opposition high table. After the Patna conclave, hosted by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, Kharge has been tasked with holding the next meeting of opposition parties at Shimla in the second week of July.

The octogenarian Congress leader visited the Bihar capital with his much younger though more sought-after leader Rahul Gandhi. The two turned out to be main participants in the nearly four-hour brainstorming with their counterparts from other parties. Together, these leaders tinkered with the idea of forging a credible formation to offer a serious challenge to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the coming general elections.

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Kharge, besides Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar, is the most seasoned, sagacious and sober figure in today’s politics. This is why Kharge is respected across the political spectrum though no one may fear him. The Congress stock has, indeed, started looking up since he took over the reins of the party in October 2022. After his ascent, the grand old party won in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. The first is his home State and the last has sizeable numbers of Dalit voters, a community to which Kharge belongs.

Kharge and Gujarat

Yet, it was under Kharge’s stewardship that the Congress lost the Gujarat elections badly in December. Both Kharge and Rahul had assessed the mood of Gujarat voters before the run-up to the Assembly polls and largely stayed away from the campaign. Instead, the Congress allowed the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to go full throttle against the BJP. The Congress idea was to deepen the schism between the BJP and AAP to an extent where the two parties get to fight each other more bitterly than both turning their guns against the Congress alone with equal vehemence in future.

It turned out to be exactly so. The AAP failed to cut ice against the Congress in Karnataka. The bitterness between the AAP and BJP after Gujarat became so intense that Kejriwal started trying to enlist Congress support against the ordinance brought by the BJP-run Central government to reverse the Supreme Court judgement that allowed the Kejriwal-led Delhi government to take control of services, or transfer and posting of its staff, from the Centre.

So, it is under these circumstances, or rather compulsion, that Kejriwal and Congress leaders came face to face at Patna on Friday. Kejriwal with his party colleagues like Bhagwant Mann, Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chaddha joined the meeting but stayed away from the press conference of opposition leaders.

Thus, what began as a tactical retreat of sorts in Gujarat polls appears to have worked as per the Congress plan. It is so as the Congress gears up for this year’s polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan besides Telangana. The AAP still has the potential to spoil or make a dent in the Congress show in some of these states but it is not going to be as daunting to face the AAP as it has been for Congress in the past in Punjab and Delhi.

The Congress has conveyed this much to Kejriwal by being ambivalent so far to AAP’s demand. The result is that the AAP has started accusing the Congress of being in league with the BJP against AAP. This is like the Congress’ earlier claims of the AAP being a B-team of the BJP.

Gandhi’s opinion

But Rahul Gandhi during his recent visit to the United States has called for “give and take” among opposition parties to match the electoral heft of the BJP in the general elections. Before this Kharge clarified that the Congress would not insist of taking over the leadership of any coalition to be formed to take on the BJP at the national level.

Whether the history of confrontation between the AAP and Congress ebbs or not to give way to some understanding, there are similarly or even more antagonistic parties to be tackled by the main protagonists of opposition unity who got together at Patna. Some regional parties have been cold to Nitish Kumar’s moves for opposition unity. The leaders left out of Patna include Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati. She has tremendous clout and following among the Dalit vote bank in Uttar Pradesh. This extends to several other states though with varying degrees of influence. In view of this and other factors, Kharge had earlier planned to invite all the opposition parties for a meeting in Delhi.

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But before he could do so, Nitish Kumar along with his deputy Tejashwi Yadav, met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who coaxed the JD-U leader into taking the initiative and call all potential opponents of the BJP to Patna. Kharge and other Congress higher-ups took this calmly and offered to send party general secretary KC Venugopal to Patna for a meeting earlier scheduled for June 12. Soon Nitish insisted on the attendance of party heads and revised the schedule to enable both Kharge and Rahul to take part.

In the meantime, Myawati held a preparatory meeting in Lucknow of her party workers for the 2024 polls. She decried both the BJP and Congress for wooing the majority community through a show of Hindu rites and rituals and leaving Dalit and minority communities, more so Muslims, in the cold. Obviously, the BSP is trying to go it alone in the general elections by bringing together Dalit and Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere.

Muslim votes

But the Congress under Kharge not only could make Muslims rally behind the party in Karnataka but is also trying to lower the communal heat in the state. On the one hand Congress leaders like Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi often visit temples as the BJP draws quite a bit of strength through its Hindu symbolism and the Congress thinks that it has to counter it so as to remain in business. But the Congress leadership is showing the will to restore minority rights and ensure justice as the party feels that these have been badly eroded during the BJP rule.

A similar, or Karnataka-like, approach appears to be being followed by the Congress again in the election-bound States. The party looks for its revival in these states. It is also eyeing the opposition unity moves since a credible role in this can well benefit the party in assembly polls where except in Telangana. The Congress will be a direct fight with the BJP in all the other three states.

Yet, a resurgence in state assembly polls may or may not benefit the Congress in the parliamentary battle. The party won the 2018 Vidhan Sabha polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan but badly lost the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in these States and beyond. This is where the move to unite the opposition is important.

Under Kharge, the Congress appears better placed to challenge its formidable rivals than earlier —  both in 2019 and 2014 besides elections in several states since Narendra Modi became the prime minister.

Moreover, with the venue for the next opposition meeting being Shimla, the possibility of Sonia Gandhi’s participation is there. Due to her ill health, she often spends time in the Himachal Pradesh capital. But like Rahul, Sonia too has been backing Kharge unreservedly in all his moves. Thus, whether Sonia attends the Shimla event or not, it is very much going to be Kharge’s show.