The Congress wants to be the ‘Big Brother’: senior leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday made it clear that no opposition front for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will work minus the Congress and with the party not being its pivot. A strategy will soon be chalked out after the end of Bharat Jodo Yatra.
But the Congress, despite its preoccupation with the yatra, has been keeping a close watch over political developments and with some concern. The only hitch with regard to the Congress assuming such a role is that there are few takers and a lack of warmth from some opposition parties. Both Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress have declared that a vote for the Congress is the same as helping the BJP.
While SP chief Akhilesh Yadav refused to be part of the yatra during its Uttar Pradesh leg, he was seen in Hyderabad at a front being chalked out by Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao. What is worse is that the SP called the Congress as “bad as the BJP”.
The reason behind this is simple – both the SP and Congress are vying for the same minority vote bank. The SP knows that giving even an inch to the Congress will divide its core minority like it did during the ‘UP ke ladke’ phase of assembly elections.
Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, in his invite to 21 “like-minded” parties to attend a rally on January 30 in Srinagar, did not include the Bharat Rahstra Samithi (previously known as the Telangana Rashtra Smaithi), Janata Dal (Secular) and the Aam Aadmi Party. The reason, once again, is obvious – all three have grown and will keep doing so at the expense of the Congress and can never be friends or trusted allies to take on the BJP.
But why is it that, after lying low on the opposition front for 2024 and insisting on equal space for all, the Congress is now suddenly aggressive and keen to take on the big role? Here, there is some difference in the thinking of camps led by former party president Rahul Gandhi and Kharge.
While Kharge feels that the alliance needs to be consensual and the Congress should agree to tone down, Rahul has always been an advocate of the ‘Ekla chalo re’ (let’s go it alone) pitch. But Sonia Gandhi, too, thinks like Kharge and feels that, for the larger goal of getting rid of the BJP, it is alright to take a step back – which is how the United Progressive Alliance was formed in the first place.
Rahul has always differed but has now preferred to take a step back. But on a high with the traction of the yatra and enthused by the crowds, he and his supporters in the party think it is time to reinstate the Congress as the head of the opposition unity family. But without regional voices like the SP, TMC and BRS, which also have a strong national resonance, the task ahead is to convince others that the grand old party can be the glue to cement a front for 2024.
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