Reading Congress’s Bengaluru guest list: AAP, BRS omitted, Mamata to send a junior, CPM in sans Pinarayi

Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and KCR’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) though, of late, have been attending Opposition meetings and are seen as part of attempts to build a common anti-BJP front.

However, the Congress had to factor in other compulsions. Inviting the BRS to share a platform with it at a time when the Telangana Assembly elections – where the two parties are direct rivals — are due in a few months would not have been good optics.

The BJP, which has been leaving nothing to chance to usurp the opposition space in Telangana, would have gone to town with any BRS-Congress unity picture emerging from Bengaluru.

With the AAP too, the Congress shares a bitter relationship, both in Delhi and Punjab. In a bypoll just a few days ago, the AAP wrested the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat that had been long held by the Congress. The Delhi unit of the Congress has always been opposed to any truck with the AAP even if, at the Central level, they have found common ground on issues.

What will hurt the Congress more is the decision by Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, who had been sent an invite for the oath-taking ceremony, to stay away. Neither is Mamata sending her two Delhi leaders in Parliament, Derek O’Brien or Sudip Bandyopadhyay.

In a tweet, O’Brien said: “The CM designate of Karnataka Mr Siddaramaiah & his other colleagues called to personally invite… CM Mamata Banerjee for swearing-in tomorrow. She conveyed her best wishes & designated @kakoligdastidar, TMC Deputy Leader in LS, to attend ceremony.”

Incidentally, while Mamata had welcomed the Karnataka verdict and congratulated the people of the state for defeating the BJP, she had avoided a mention of the Congress. Later though, indicating a shift in her stand on Opposition unity, the TMC chief had said that the party was ready to support the Congress in seats where it was strong, if it did likewise.

While the Congress was not expected to invite Mayawati this time, it also shows how dynamics have changed in the last five years. One of the most powerful photographs of H D Kumaraswamy’s swearing-in at the head of the short-lived Congress-JD(S) coalition government of Karnataka five years ago was the on-stage bonhomie seen between Sonia Gandhi and Mayawati.

BJD chief Naveen Patnaik ruled out any dalliance with a united Opposition in as many words a few days ago, soon after calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This was a day after Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had called on Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, presumably as part of his mission Opposition unity tour.

The YSRCP is seen as close to the BJP, though it is not part of the NDA. Plus, Jagan Mohan Reddy has little need to accommodate the Congress in the state, where it has no electoral presence left.

In the case of Kerala CM and CPI(M) Politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, though, the Congress is in a bit of a jam. Pinarayi is a bitter critic of the Congress, which is the CPI(M)’s main rival in Kerala, a stand that has not altered despite his party’s growing proximity with the Congress elsewhere.

As the Left questioned the exclusion of Pinarayi from the Congress’s list of guests for the Bengaluru swearing-in, sources in the Congress tried to argue that the party had invited “heads of parties” and hence, from the CPI(M) side, reached out to its general secretary Sitaram Yechury.

The Kerala ruling Left Democratic Front, led by the CPI(M), called the decision to not invite Pinarayi a reflection of “the Congress party’s immature politics and weakness”.

The Congress’s move has proved that it cannot carry out the mission of bringing together the secular democratic forces of the country against the BJP’s “fascist” politics, LDF convenor E P Jayarajan said. “Now, what anti-BJP stand is the Congress party going to adopt in the country?” he added.