Without holding any brief for the Congress party, especially for its saffronised leader Kamal Nath, one needs to understand the irresponsible actions of some of the constituents of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance as well. As it has become a fashion of sort to blame Congress for all that goes wrong in the opposition camp, the fact is that leaders of the regional parties like Aam Aadmi Party, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), and Trinamool Congress are more bothered about their survival rather than work for the broad-based opposition front.
It would be inappropriate to put all the blame on Congress for the absence of a seat-sharing arrangement with the Samajwadi Party in Madhya Pradesh. The truth is that its leader Akhilesh Singh Yadav was cozying up with none else but the supremo of Bharat Rashtriya Samiti, K Chandrasekhar Rao, who had not joined INDIA. Within 10 days of the first meeting in Patna on June 23—in which 16 parties took part—Akhilesh on July 3 went to meet K Chandrasekhar Rao in Hyderabad. He remained in constant touch with the BRS chief on the plea that he wanted to rope the latter into INDIA. This was bound to create suspicion as it is a fact that BRS is known for its proclivity towards the Bharatiya Janata Party. KCR had not far back called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a ‘good friend’. What was Akhilesh trying to prove by associating himself with KCR whose anti-Congress stand was very well known?
Not only Congress, but even Nationalist Congress Party chief, Sharad Pawar, had just before the June 23 Patna meeting flayed KCR’s bid to expand BRS into Maharashtra and thus in the process created division in the opposition camp and facilitated BJP.
No scope for SP in MP
If the Bahujan Samaj Party had fielded its candidates in these four states it is understandable as it was not a part of INDIA. But what was the point of the Samajwadi Party demanding seats in Madhya Pradesh? There was no scope for the Samajwadi Party to garner any vote there. The December 3 results also proved how negligible the hold SP has in Madhya Pradesh.
Whatever arguments some of our political pundits are making the fact is that regional satraps have their limitations. Take the case of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. He is the tallest leader of Kurmis in Bihar yet his party, Janata Dal (United) could not win any seats on its own in Uttar Pradesh, a state which has percentage-wise about double the population of its caste men in comparison to its eastern neighbour.
In the 2012 Assembly election in UP the Bharatiya Janata Party refused to give any seat to its partner Janata Dal (United) though that was the high time of the alliance in Bihar where in 2010 they together won 206 out of 243 seats.
Upset Nitish put up candidates in 218 seats but badly lost all of them. Needless to say, Akhilesh won that election and BJP was completely decimated, pushed to third place. The saffron party could have taken the help of Nitish there as it had no prominent Kurmi face of its own, but the BJP did not do so. This was the situation when in the 2002 and 2007 polls the two contested together and JD (U) won one seat at a time.
In the February 2022 UP poll, Nitish’s party (then again in NDA) fielded 50 seats as BJP, now in power, refused to accommodate. Once again JD (U) was humiliated.
In the Madhya Pradesh election, the Samajwadi Party should, as a friendly gesture towards Congress, not fielded its candidates. Unlike the case of Kurmis in UP, in Madhya Pradesh, the number of Yadavs is estimated to be half of that in Uttar Pradesh. If the BJP in 2012 did not leave the seat for Nitish in UP, though he was a very powerful chief minister and an alliance partner, the Congress too may have thought that taking the support of Akhilesh, who is out of power in his state, would make no difference.
AAP, TMC too responsible
Samajwadi Party is not the lone culprit. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal left the June 23 meeting of opposition parties in Patna before the joint Press conference. Though AAP bigwigs are feeling the heat of central agencies they are not softening their stand towards Congress.
Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has also been myopic in her approach since the very beginning. Even before the idea of INDIA had emerged she fielded candidates in Goa, Tripura, Gujarat, etc., and even split Congress in Meghalaya. She is even reluctant to whole-heartedly support her own beleaguered MP, Mahua Moitra, who is getting more support from Congress.
Nitish’s utterances
On the other hand, Nitish Kumar has been nursing the ambition of being projected as the PM face of INDIA. While addressing a public meeting organized by alliance partner Communist Party of India in Patna on November 2 he criticized Congress for not calling INDIA meetings on the plea that its leaders are preoccupied with the election campaign in five states. One fails to understand what Nitish was trying to convey as it was a fact that Congress leaders were—and should be—busy in electioneering.
What Bihar CM failed to appreciate is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his election speeches, fully exploited his ‘vulgar’ utterances on the man-woman relationship in the state Assembly and Nitish’s public condemnation of former chief minister and Dalit leader Jitan Ram Manjhi.
Modi thundered as to how a Scheduled Caste leader had been humiliated by a prominent figure of INDIA.
In contrast Nitish’s alliance partner, Lalu Prasad Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal never accused Congress of what others allege as a big brotherly attitude.
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