The writing was on the wall after the 2014 general elections and it was writ clearer and bolder after the BJP swept to power at the Centre again in 2019. In both the politically significant states of UP and Bihar, pre-poll grand alliances based on social arithmetic that had held fast in the post-Mandal era would have suggested that the ruling party was in for a hard time in the 2019 general elections. But in UP, the Mahagathbandhan of the SP, BSP and RLD won just 15 seats out of 80 and in Bihar, the RJD-JDU-Congress alliance, which had routed the BJP in assembly polls, could get just one seat out of 40. The fact that social engineering or alliance arithmetic was not enough has been staring the Opposition in the face. But it is only now that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, on a break from the Bharat Jodo Yatra, acknowledged it. In a press conference in the national capital, he said that “the Opposition has to … go to the people with a vision, an alternative vision to the BJP… not just go to the people”.
Non-NDA political parties — from TMC and SP to DMK and the Left — have paid lip-service to the idea of opposition unity since 2014. That unity, as Rahul Gandhi has just pointed out, must go beyond mere seat-sharing arrangements. This is, of course, easier said than done. There are multiple claimants for the leadership of an anti-BJP alliance – though no one has yet thrown their hat in the ring, this list includes Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar. The Congress’s diminished electoral influence means that it may have to take a backseat in states where it is not in a two-way contest with the BJP. Providing “a central ideological framework and structure”, as Gandhi puts it, while fine-tuning electoral tactics is something the party has struggled with. It is not yet clear if Congress or Rahul Gandhi as yet have the political credentials or ability to manage the ideological and political contradictions between Opposition forces.
