“The Opposition space is so badly fragmented that it seems incapable of reaching the critical mass necessary to take on the BJP. At the heart of the problem is the thinly-spread-out Congress that has a notional presence across the country but lacks depth and gets quickly uprooted. Hence, it keeps losing bases to regional forces, such as the recent loss of Punjab to AAP. Attempts to stay afloat in the face of regional powerhouses have also produced dismal results as in Bengal and UP……………

Rational thought demands that the Congress and regional forces unite. It necessitates that the Congress pull itself up by its bootstraps and tie up with strong regional parties — ruling or in the Opposition in the states. But the irrational is happening. Last week, Rahul Gandhi travelled to Telangana, where he launched a scathing attack on Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. KCR, he tweeted, had single-handedly destroyed the dream of the people of Telangana when statehood was granted. He also said that Telangana was not ruled by the CM but by a ‘Raja’.”

It has been a year since two significant states, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, were won by two big regional parties, the TMC and DMK, even as the Left Front retained Kerala, giving rise to speculation that some kind of national Opposition could be mustered against the BJP in 2024. But a year down the line, after the BJP’s recent win in state polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, and the continued disarray in the Congress, the vision of a grand Opposition coalition against the BJP has evaporated. Indeed, one may well say that in 2022, two years before the next General Election, the world’s largest democracy is a country without a national Opposition.

This is cause for great concern in Opposition-ruled states: they are owed huge amounts in GST arrears and complain of being deliberately overlooked by the Centre. With inflation skyrocketing, they are coping with increased costs for infrastructure and development schemes even as avenues for raising revenue have shrunk since the roll-out of the GST. While they struggle for funds, both at the party and government levels, the BJP/RSS project of expanding to each part of the country, continues

with purpose and is well funded. For instance, the BJP is opening offices in the districts of Tamil Nadu, a state where they have no real presence, yet are investing in the long game. Opposition states are living through a particularly difficult era as all the niceties of cooperative federalism have been abandoned by the current Central dispensation. The onslaught is pretty ruthless and states not ruled by the national party, complain of being treated as hostile entities with enforcement wings of the Centre routinely used against them. For instance, in Maharashtra, two ministers of the ruling coalition are in jail, while a dozen are being investigated by Central agencies.

As prices soar in India and jobs are not created, in normal times the Opposition should have been emerging with strength and purpose. Instead, political narratives appear to be getting delinked from economic issues. Equally, the Opposition space is so badly fragmented that it seems incapable of reaching the critical mass necessary to take on the BJP. At the heart of the problem is the thinly-spread-out Congress that has a notional national presence across the country but lacks depth and gets quickly uprooted. Hence, it keeps losing bases to regional forces, such as the recent loss of Punjab to AAP. Attempts to stay afloat in the face of regional powerhouses have also produced dismal results, such as getting zero seats in Bengal and one in Uttar Pradesh. And when it comes to Congress vs BJP, even if the Congress wins, the BJP has a high strike rate in toppling the regimes through defections.

Rational thought demands that the Congress and regional forces unite. It necessitates that the Congress pull itself up by its bootstraps and tie up with strong regional parties – ruling or in the Opposition in the states. But the irrational is happening. Last week, Rahul Gandhi travelled to Telangana, where he launched a scathing attack on Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. KCR, he tweeted, had single-handedly destroyed the dream of the people of Telangana when statehood was granted. He also said that Telangana was not ruled by the CM but by a ‘Raja’.

It may be recalled that it was the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress that took political decisions that effectively destroyed the party’s own bases in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh (the largest chunk of Congress MPs during the decade of UPA rule came from undivided Andhra Pradesh). Central to this success was chief minister YSR Reddy, a pioneer in designing popular welfare schemes (and having links with big business donors). But YSR’s death in a plane crash in 2009, led to chaos that in turn resulted in the Congress national leadership taking decisions that in hindsight only finished them off in both Telangana, carved out of the state in 2014, and in Andhra Pradesh where YSR’s son Jagan Mohan Reddy, denied power by the Congress, is now in power with his party named YSR Congress.

It’s entirely possible that Rahul Gandhi feels compelled to speak up for what remains of his party in those parts; just as he would have been asked to do so by the Congress in Bengal. But surely it is time for the Congress leadership to get a reality check and recognize that ‘the party is over’ in many parts of India and the only way forward is to make arrangements with regional forces even if that involves giving up on what remains in the debris (the best template actually exists in Tamil Nadu where the Congress is the junior partner in the DMK-led alliance).

Presumably, political consultant Prashant Kishor had offered the blueprint of a national plan when he was negotiating to join the Congress last month. It may not have worked but the data with which the consultancy I-PAC, founded by Kishor, works would have been valuable as could have been the professionalism in calibrating other aspects of elections. Ironically, TRS is now reportedly a client of I-PAC just as Jagan Reddy was during the campaign that won him the state. But Kishor, meanwhile, after his talks with the Congress failed, has taken off for his home state Bihar where he has announced a padayatra and the beginning of a process that can culminate in the foundation of another political party/front.

Indeed, the great irony is that while there is not much of a national Opposition, the space is also getting very crowded. AAP is set to contest the Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh later this year. The TMC has plans in the North-east, even as a foray into Goa was a disaster that did nothing to improve relations with the Congress. Kishor, consultant to various parties, has also begun a political process in Bihar where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is again making enigmatic moves.

The Congress, meanwhile, has not revealed any plan. Rahul Gandhi is reportedly deeply interested in philosophies of the world and perhaps believes in the live-life-one-day-at-a-time and what-will-be-will-be approach. Currently, the hopes seem to exist on a wing and a prayer, a phrase that comes from a fighter pilot trying to land his aircraft in World War II after a wing was destroyed. The Congress will have a brainstorming meeting in Udaipur between May 13 and 15. Let’s hope the party leaders won’t spend all the time trying to chase their own tails. The expectations are very low, so perhaps they can pull a surprise.

(The author is a senior journalist)