A bid to reconstruct the almost defunct United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and a possible rejuvenation of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will mark the beginning of next week, leading up to the start of the monsoon session of parliament. The two alliances, each pivoting around lead players BJP and Congress, will set the ball rolling for the next general election.
The Congress will host the follow-up of the Patna discussions of anti-NDA parties in Bengaluru. Seventeen parties gathered in Patna at the invitation of Nitish Kumar on June 23. For Round 2, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has expanded the list to 24 by including many smaller parties from the South. This window dressing by Kharge is designed to offset the BJP's bid to attract smaller parties in the North.
The NDA meeting on July 18 in Delhi will feature the BJP's new Maharashtra allies - the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The return of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Shiromani Akali Dal to the NDA is being speculated. Karnataka's Janata Dal (Secular), Uttar Pradesh's Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), Bihar's Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) and Hindustan Awami Morcha (HAM), along with the Chirag Paswan faction of the Lok Janshakti Party, are also being brought in to widen the NDA's caste base.
These two line-ups do not represent the mosaic of India's multiparty, democratic politics. Addressing the joint session of the US Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated India had 2,500 political parties and about 20 different parties govern various states of India. Telangana's ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti, Odisha's Biju Janata Dal, Andhra Pradesh's YSRCP, Bahujan Samaj Party and many parties with pockets of influence and vote banks are with neither side.
The Bengaluru meet, like its Patna predecessor, will be an attempt by some - not all - opponents of the NDA to provide a united opposition in 2024.
The bonus for Bengaluru is the announcement that Sonia Gandhi will attend. She is the chairperson of UPA. In 2004, implementing her party's 2003 Shimla Sankalp, she stitched together the UPA after Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA rule crashed along with its "India Shining" campaign.
This columnist had hinted in an earlier despatch that the Congress intended to host the very first opposition meet in Shimla (prior to Patna being announced as the venue) to secure the presence of Sonia Gandhi, who was then recuperating in Himachal Pradesh. The aversion of some parties to the Congress as the pivot of anti-BJP manoeuvres took the conclave to Patna. This reservation has not subsided.
Sonia Gandhi has in the past formed alliances with ease. She is credited with ensuring that Congress did not wilt during her tenure as the longest-serving Congress president. In fact, the present move has its origins in a meeting she had with Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar in September last. Leaders like Mamata Banerjee, who are somewhat averse to Rahul Gandhi, feel comfortable with her. So do many others.
But things are different in 2023.
Two decades back, the Congress organisation was far healthier. CPI(M) secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet, CPI's AB Bardhan, and Lalu Yadav were the leaders who helped Sonia Gandhi network. Even Rajiv Gandhi's bête noire, VP Singh, stood with her to oust the BJP. An ailing Lalu Yadav is the only player of 2003 active today.
Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni and Ghulam Nabi Azad were her proactive aides who had wide contacts and persuasive skills. Pranab Mukherjee, Makhan Lal Fotedar and RK Dhawan, residues of the Indira Gandhi era, also used their inter-party manoeuvring skills.
Pranab, Fotedar and Dhawan are no more. Ahmed Patel's death caused a vaccuum in the Congress that is yet to be filled. Azad has exited the party. Ambika Soni has not been active of late, though she is part of the Congress consultation process.
Sitaram Yechury is no Harkishan Surjeet. Nor are KC Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala effective substitutes for Ahmed Patel and Azad.
The unity bid of the Congress in 2023 is a closed group exercise assigned to Venugopal and his associates. Unlike 2003, when the Congress used all possible resources to emerge as the pivot, the party has a myopic approach now.
There are doubts circulating in the grapevine on the future moves of some of the participants of the meet. There are questions aplenty about the convener of the Patna meet, Nitish Kumar, too. Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD)'s Jayant Choudhry, currently an ally of the Samajwadi Party in UP, skipped Patna but will join the Bengaluru meet. But there is talk that his party may be inclined towards realigning and may not stay in the anti-NDA bloc.
Sharad Pawar, perceived as the patriarch of the anti-NDA lineup, is busy fighting bushfires in his own backyard. A section of Congress leaders from Maharashtra, when they met with Kharge and Rahul Gandhi at the Congress headquarters to discuss political developments in their state on July 11, raised red flags on Pawar, while sympathising with him against nephew Ajit Pawar's rebellion.
On August 1, Narendra Modi and Sharad Pawar are set to share a dais in Pune at a function to mark Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak's death anniversary. Modi is being given the Lokmanya Tilak Award by the Lokmanya Tilak Smarak Trust. It is a bipartisan event. A leader of the Congress's Maharashtra unit, Rohit Tilak, and veteran Congressman Sushil Kumar Shinde are associated with the memorial trust. Congress leaders from Maharashtra sounded an alarm on the Modi-Pawar event in a meeting with Kharge and Rahul.
As expected, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has reiterated its demand that the Congress clarify its stand on the Delhi Services Ordinance before the Bengaluru talks. The very fact that AAP has been invited by Kharge shows that a final call has not been taken. The reservations of parties like AAP and suspicion within the Congress on the motives of some participants are glitches that Sonia Gandhi may need to paper over.
Mamata Banerjee will be in Bengaluru after consolidating her home turf in the Panchayat elections. Will she be willing to play ball with the Congress and Left Front in West Bengal after this bitter rivalry in local polls? A three-way contest benefits her. This, and many more glitches; the Samajwadi Party's inclination to go with the BRS and form a separate front altogether will be among the imponderables in the unity meet.
Will Bengaluru throw up a common agenda? Modi has floated the Uniform Civil Code balloon. Will the Bengaluru participants have a common view on this, to begin with? To oppose the NDA, a refurbished UPA, if it emerges, will have to provide an alternative agenda to the nation.
(Shubhabrata Bhattacharya is a retired Editor and a public affairs commentator.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.