Opinion Express View on Opposition meet: Patna, post-Patna

Something may be stirring within the ranks of Opposition parties ahead of 2024 and Friday’s grand get-together in Patna could give early intimations of the shift. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is bound to cut a striking figure as he plays host, mediator, and possible fulcrum. After all, Nitish was once projected as a potential face of the national alternative to Narendra Modi after he walked his party out of its alliance with the BJP because of Modi’s rise, but he then went back to the BJP-led NDA before he broke up with it again. Nitish’s political somersaults, however, are unlikely to set off any more ripples. Even though he took the lead in getting parties across the political spectrum to agree to share a stage, the driving force for the mega meeting is much larger than him. Events such as Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from Parliament, and Manish Sisodia’s arrest, may have played a bigger role in bringing together parties that have made a point so far of not being seen in each other’s company, like the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress, for the Patna photo-op.

The real challenge will begin after the photo-op. This is not the first time that Opposition parties are attempting a joint platform to take on the dominant ruling party. But the anti-BJP alliance that is being put together now is against a government with a many-layered appeal that has decisively won two terms at the Centre, and posted several electoral successes in the states. It is headed by a leader whose popularity remains high. Today, Opposition parties must deal with the challenges of jointness — seat-sharing, identifying a common leader and a common minimum programme — in a polity that is far more splintered, has sharply defined regional arenas, and therefore many more turf wars. Moreover, the Congress, for long on a downswing, seems to have found new energy within after the Bharat Jodo Yatra, and new confidence without after the Karnataka victory. That could pose problems for a grouping which includes parties that are claiming the Congress space, or those that are locked in combat with it in the states.

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Will the Congress break its reticence on the Central ordinance that seeks to pare down the powers of Delhi’s AAP government? Will non-BJP parties make common cause only on common spectres like central misuse of agencies against political opponents, or will they also say something on national issues like the continuing crisis in Manipur? How much of the grand alliance will be a pre-poll pact, and how much will it leave to post-election configurations? The answers to those questions and others could start coming in from Patna.