Opinion Oppn failed to put up a symbolic fight against BJP in battle for President for which it has itself to blame

On the face of it, there is no connection between the two events except that they happened more or less simultaneously. Several parties of the Opposition have expressed outrage over what they see as BJP-wrought distortions in the national emblem, the Ashokan lions, installed atop the new Parliament building. The Shiv Sena, erstwhile BJP ally and most recently victim of a toppling game seen to be choreographed by the BJP that felled the Uddhav Thackeray-led government in Maharashtra, has announced it will support the BJP’s candidate in the upcoming presidential contest. Seen together, these two separate developments illustrate this: The country’s Opposition is quick to react, but it is only reactive to the agenda set by the BJP. For the rest, it never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. All the non-BJP parties’ loud indignation over the allegedly snarling Ashokan lions cannot paper over the inert silence deepening around the candidature of Yashwant Sinha for president, to which the Sena decision has now landed a fell blow. The Opposition, short of numbers to begin with, had a chance to put up a symbolic fight against the BJP in the battle for president. It failed to, and for that it has only its own lack of imagination, apart from a missing political strategy, to blame.

It is revealing that the Shiv Sena is rising above its all too recent hostilities with the BJP to support Droupadi Murmu. It may well be that its compulsion to hold an imploding party together is the explanation. But the reason is also that in putting forward a woman belonging to a Scheduled Tribe, a self-made politician with an arduous journey, the BJP has crafted a powerful candidature for presidential office that, even in these polarised times, its political opponents find difficult to oppose. It’s not just the Sena. Murmu’s candidature has split the ranks of the Opposition, with the BSP, JD(S) and SAD announcing their support to her, and even Sinha’s original backer, TMC, sending ambivalent signals. By all accounts, the Opposition failed twice — first in not finding, with all respect to Sinha, a candidature anywhere near as irrefutable, and then, in not having a plan to make the most of a losing candidate either.

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In the Opposition’s own words, the presidential contest was going to be a fight between two ideologies. Having framed the face-off in grand ways, it must now also take responsibility for the ignominious cave-in. Candidate Sinha’s failure to launch, and the non-BJP parties’ standstill, even in a symbolic fight, is a metaphor for the state of the Opposition in times of BJP dominance. With less than two years left for the next parliamentary election, the Opposition would do well not to pass over this moment lightly.