Sending a clear signal that he is not in favour of keeping Congress out of an anti-BJP opposition formation, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar on Monday met senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and the two agreed that opposition parties need to unite. While Nitish is clear that a non-BJP Opposition formation is not viable without Congress, bringing the opposition parties together is easier said than done, as the likes of Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) are unwilling to accept the Congress primacy. The Left, on the other hand, is not enthusiastic about a pre-election front, as it has often argued that the United Front in the 1990s and UPA in 2004 were post-poll coalitions. Nitish is scheduled to meet Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja on Tuesday to explore his idea of Opposition unity. AAP has always maintained a distance from opposition groupings. Opposition unity, many leaders feel, has little relevance on the ground. "AAP and Congress will fight each other in Delhi and Punjab. In fact, AAP often talks about replacing Congress as the main opposition party and is aggressively campaigning in Gujarat for the forthcoming Assembly polls,” a senior Opposition leader said. “The Congress and the Left, separately or in alliance, will contest in West Bengal. The Left and the Congress are rivals in Kerala, so opposition unity is largely a theoretical construct.” This leader agreed that the post-poll situation is a “different ball game and the parties, depending on their numbers, can come together”. The DMK, NCP and Shiv Sena have already signalled that an Opposition formation without Congress is not viable. Before leaving for Delhi, Kumar had a meeting with RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, who shares good equations with Congress president Sonia Gandhi. His JD(U) colleagues said Nitish's meeting with Rahul is a clear message from their side that they consider the Congress central to any Opposition unity plans. JD(U) national spokesperson K C Tyagi said smaller parties like theirs had burnt their hands earlier by keeping away the Congress. "Congress is still the principal opponent of BJP. No Opposition unity is possible without Congress. Our experiment with the Third Front has failed right from V P Singh's time to H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral. Against the dominant BJP, we need a front that must have Congress in it and other smaller parties rallying around it,” he said. Tyagi said Nitish will meet as many Opposition leaders as he can in the coming months. "It will be a round of courtesy meetings…. Nitish-ji has been an assimilative figure with high credentials as Bihar CM, (and) we are very hopeful of the Opposition uniting with a common agenda,” he said. Talking to reporters in Patna before leaving for Delhi, Nitish reiterated the need for opposition parties to come together. Rubbishing reports that he could emerge as the Opposition’s PM candidate, he said, “I don't have any wish.my only wish is that it would be very good if more opposition parties come together.” Newsletter | Click to get the day's best explainers in your inbox In Patna, senior BJP leader and former Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi asserted that the doors of BJP are "permanently shut" for Nitish, PTI reported.
