As Opposition Members of Parliament got suspended from the House in unprecedented numbers this week, the focus was on the much-awaited meeting of the Opposition's I.N.D.I.A alliance in New Delhi. Because of the Assembly polls in five states and hectic campaign by all parties ahead of those polls, the Opposition alliance could not meet for a long time. Whether this alliance is still well cemented together as previously seen, or whether the results in North India's “cow belt” have dampened their spirits, is a crucial question because much now depends, in the upcoming election to the Lok Sabha, on how well the Opposition sticks together. In states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Bengal a lot now depends on how the seat sharing happens and whether the anti-BJP vote gets divided in multiple directions.
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool party leader Mamata Banerjee spoke on Monday about how there is no dispute in the Opposition alliance over who the prime ministerial candidate would be from the I.N.D.I.A alliance, as that can emerge later after there is clarity on which party wins how many seats in the Lok Sabha polls. However, there is some demand now emerging about the need to have some face that is at the forefront of the Opposition alliance. On Tuesday Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray reached New Delhi for the meeting of the Opposition alliance and he stressed on the need to have a face which will be at the forefront for the I.N.D.I.A alliance. “The face we right now choose will not necessarily be our prime ministerial candidate, but we need somebody who can perhaps be the convenor of the alliance because a lot of coordination needs to be done ahead of the polls,” Uddhav said while speaking with the media in New Delhi.
When alliance politics emerged in a major way first in 1977 in India, the Opposition alliance then had faces like LK Advani and Madhu Dandavate who worked as coordinators, while the face as patriarch was that of Jay Prakash Narayan. Later in the late 1990s when the Opposition got together as an alliance against the Congress party, the convenor of that alliance was senior leader George Fernandes. In 2003 when the Congress party got together an alliance against the BJP-led NDA, the convenor for that alliance was Sharad Yadav. So historically every political alliance in India has had a convenor, or some face that does the coordination. What is being seen now is that no such face or leader is being projected by the I.N.D.I.A alliance till now and many feel that such a face is badly needed.
Can a party — especially an alliance of various parties — build credibility among voters without a face in the forefront? Some members of the Opposition alliance claim that they can convince the voters without having a face as the top leader. In the 2004 polls the UPA did not have a face as prime ministerial candidate and yet it beat the NDA. After the polls Dr Manmohan Singh was made Prime Minister by the Congress leadership. A similar thing happened in 1977 when the Opposition united against a very powerful Indira Gandhi and won against her Congress party and then chose Morarji Desai as prime minister. However, the BJP, which was part of this anti-Congress alliance and did not project any face as prime ministerial candidate in the fight against Indira Gandhi, now pitches Narendra Modi as the PM candidate and poses the question, “If not Modi, then who?”
The BJP has turned this fight into a Presidential type of poll battle in which one face as the PM candidate is the essence of their campaign. In Maharashtra the party insists that the Opposition is totally divided and has no coordination. It is partly evident that in Maharashtra the Congress and Shiv Sena have not really gelled together as alliance partners, similar is the situation between Sharad Pawar's NCP and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena. In a recent video seen on social media, Maha Vikas Aghadi leader and Sharad Pawar faction NCP state President Jayant Patil was seen speaking with Uddhav Thackeray's personal assistant Milind Narvekar in Thackeray's presence about how Uddhav hardly spends any time at joint meetings discussing important matters between alliance partners and how Narvekar is generally in a rush to take him away from any meeting! These video snippets seen on social media sometimes reveal the real nature of the Opposition alliance. Various parties and their leaders may have come together on a platform but are their commitments from the heart?
The BJP on its part has been using different tactics in different states. In Maharashtra, in the last Assembly polls, the BJP came out clearly saying Devendra Fadnavis will be its chief ministerial candidate; however, in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan the party did not announce any face as CM candidate ahead of the polls. So it is not that the BJP always adopts the strategy of putting a face at the forefront. They use any strategy that they think might work for them.
In such a situation, does the I.N.D.I.A alliance really need a face to be projected? Perhaps not as a PM candidate against BJP's Narendra Modi, but there are some obvious communications gaps in the Opposition alliance and to take care of those, appointment of a convenor may help the alliance immensely!
Rohit Chandavarkar is a senior journalist who has worked for 31 years with various leading newspaper brands and television channels in Mumbai and Pune
