The opposition parties’ Save Democracy Rally held in Delhi’s Ram Lila Ground on March 31, the second such show after the announcement of the election date, was different in at least a couple of ways. Unlike the March 3 display of strength in Patna and the one organized in Mumbai on March 17, this big mobilization took place in the state where an opposition outfit, Aam Aadmi Party, is in power. While the previous two rallies did not get due media attention the one in Delhi was covered by most private television channels—perhaps they have smelled a rat. Ironically, those present on the occasion were Trinamool Congress and Left parties’ leaders as well.
Curiously, thanks to the BJP’s style of politics it brought two main rivals, AAP and Congress, to one platform. This was something unthinkable till a few months back.
INDIA’s core team
Needless to say, the three-term Delhi chief minister of Congress, Sheila Dikshit, was voted out of power in 2013 after a prolonged struggle by AAP. The India Against Corruption campaign paved the way for the rise of Bharatiya Janata Party and fall of the then Manmohan Singh government. AAP was formed in this very Ram Lila Maidan a decade ago. Till sometimes back, many independent political observers, not to speak of Congress-men and – women, would call AAP and its convener, Arvind Kejriwal, the B-team of the saffron party.
Now, on the eve of the parliamentary election the two main political rivals of BJP in Delhi and Punjab have ranged up against it. That Congress heavyweights like its president Mallikarjun Kharge, former chief, Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi would share dais with the AAP bigwigs, including Sunita Kejriwal, wife of jailed Delhi CM, Arvind Kejriwal, was unimaginable. Another prominent woman present on the occasion was Kalpana Soren, spouse of another jailed former CM of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren. He was arrested on January 31. The present chief minister Champai Soren also addressed the event so did Tejashwi Prasad Yadav of RJD, Akhilesh Singh Yadav of Samajwadi Party, Sitaram Yechury of CPI (M), Sharad Pawar of Nationalists Congress Party, Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI (ML), Farooq Abdullah of National Conference etc.
Unlike the general practice of the ruling party which relishes in dividing the opposition rank, the BJP has over the years mastered the art of uniting them. The arrest of Kejriwal and Soren and freezing of Congress party’s account, not to speak of witch-hunting against other opposition bigwigs have compelled them to shed their differences.
This strategy is backfiring on the BJP at the regional level in several states, and now posing a real big challenge to the saffron party at the national level. Be it in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, not to speak of Delhi and Gujarat, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance amicably agreed to bury their differences and shared seats among them. Very few political pundits ever predicted that AAP and Congress would fight together in Delhi and Gujarat.
BJP launches campaign
The Delhi rally was called within 10 days of the arrest of Kejriwal on March 21.
Incidentally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his party’s election rally from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh on this very day. This was the fifth time, third in Lok Sabha and twice in UP assembly poll, that the PM had chosen Meerut to kick off his campaign. This city falls in the Jat heartland of UP and farmers mostly belonging to this caste are on the warpath against the policy of the Union government. Among other crops, Meerut is also known for sugarcane production.
Apart from Modi, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and new friend Jayant Chaudhary of Rashtriya Lok Dal, were the main attraction. Only a day earlier Jayant’s grandfather and former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, was conferred Bharat Ratna by President Draupadi Murmu.
The choice of Meerut is politically and religiously significant for the BJP which had made Arun Govil, who played Ram in the tele-serial, Ramayana, as its candidate. The party wants to capitalize his name after the consecration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22.
The BJP will leave no stone unturned to retain the support of Jats of the region, who overwhelmingly (91%) voted for it in the 2019 election.
But the development in Delhi, some 70 km from Meerut, is more significant as the opposition has nothing to lose here. The BJP won all the seven seats in 2019. The joining of hands by AAP and Congress has made the top brass of the saffron party sit up and re-draw its strategy. It changed six of the seven sitting MPs including the former health minister Harsh Vardhan, cricketer Gautam Gambhir and Meenakshi Lekhi. The replacement of candidates exposes the panic within the BJP.
But all this is the result of unnecessary antagonization of AAP which has been pushed close to Congress, against which the party came into existence.
The mega-rally has succeeded in sending the message that the opposition is not only united in Delhi, but all over India, and can no more be taken lightly.
| Posted by Minhaj Adnan | 
