By Nidhi Sharma
NEW DELHI: When the Opposition named Gopalkrishna Gandhi this week as its candidate for the Vice-presidential election, the Janata Dal (United) was quick to declare its support.
This was in stark contrast to its earlier decision to back the BJP-led ruling coalition's nominee Ram Nath Kovind for the presidential election, for which it squarely blamed the Congress, accusing it of delaying the process of selecting the Opposition's candidate.
It's no credit to the Congress, though, that the JD (U) decided to side with the Opposition in the VP election. For, as people familiar with the matter said, it was the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress which took the lead in rallying the non-NDA parties behind Gandhi's candidature.
Although there may be more to the JD(U)'s decisions than its public pronouncements suggest, such as its leader Nitish Kumar's impatience with the alliance partner RJD and a bigger desire to play ball with the BJP, there is increasing evidence to indicate that the Congress may be ceding ground as the leader of the Opposition.
Consider the manner in which it handled its declared boycott of the Narendra Modi government's special midnight function in Parliament to roll out the GST regime.
On June 29, after internal discussions spread over three days, the Congress announced at a 4 pm press briefing that the party would boycott the midnight function. After this, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad started calling all Opposition parties. While Trinamool Congress and RJD showed solidarity with the Congress, NCP and JD (U) decided to send a leader each to Parliament.
Janata Dal (Secular) said its leader HD Deve Gowda would not only attend but also share the dais with PM Narendra Modi. The party's message to the Congress was unequivocal - We were waiting for you all this while. You should have called a meeting of Opposition parties and taken everybody on board.
On the eve of the high-profile function, the Opposition was anything but united. The Congress had failed to lead from the front and gather the Opposition together on an issue it wanted to confront the government.
mind internally. How can we approach Opposition parties when we are trying to frame our position?" said Rajya Sabha member and former Congress minister Jairam Ramesh, seeking to brush aside any criticism over delay in decision-making.
Leaders from others parties, however, said the Congress needed to get its act together as the main opposition party.
In the case of the presidential candidate, for instance, they said the Congress should have announced the candidate before the ruling camp did, as the JD (U) had said. "There was no reason why we couldn't strategise it better," an NCP leader said. NCP chief Sharad Pawar didn't want to be seen breaking ranks with the Opposition but he made his displeasure with the handling of the situation evident, another person said.
"There is no Opposition today," said social scientist Shiv Visvanathan. "Congress is unable to garner the support of Opposition parties. That is precisely the tragedy. It become like a huge tamasha. If we were to do an audit of all these tamashas, you will see it hasn't added anything to the Congress or to Opposition unity."
"For BJP, the opposition is coming really from civil society and dissenting intellectuals,"says Visvanathan.
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