Opposition INDIA alliance on the brink as cracks widen

If you needed more evidence that the opposition INDIA alliance was imploding, look no further than Maharashtra, where the political chess game is moving at a pace most will find hard to keep up with.

The Shiv Sena UBT, which is part of the Maha Vikas Agadhi (MVA) opposition bloc along with the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s NCP, has announced it will fight the all-important BMC elections alone.

Elections to Mumbai’s municipal body are no ordinary local polls. This is Asia’s richest municipal body and the battle for who controls it is as important as any state poll.

Shiv Sena UBT MP Sanjay Raut has also said no alliance can succeed if there is no dialogue among its members, while he urged the Congress to take the lead on this as the largest member of the grouping.

The Sena UBT’s move to contest the local polls alone comes at a time when speculation has intensified about Uddhav Thackeray jumping ship to support the BJP.

The Maharashtra state elections have settled the question of who is the real Shiv Sena with the Shinde faction hammering the UBT one. And it may make more political sense for Uddhav Thackeray to go back to the NDA fold in the long run than hang around with a much weakened MVA.

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Sharad Pawar’s faction of the NCP is also said to be ready to switch sides. Sources say that a much weaker Pawar is pondering the long term future of his party and his daughter Supriya Sule. The Congress is not going anywhere in Maharashtra at the moment and not showing any inclination to make big changes.

And while a patch up with nephew Ajit Pawar is not on the cards for now, joining the NDA is a real possibility for the Sharad Pawar faction. Pawar further set the cat among the pigeons by saying this week that the INDIA alliance was only for national elections.

In Delhi, where elections are being held on February 5, the INDIA alliance does not exist and other opposition parties like the Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party have thrown their weight behind the Aam Aadmi Party or the AAP. In fact, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal have been attacking each other on the campaign trail.

Slowly shrinking opposition space

For most parties in the INDIA bloc, the main point of grievance is the Congress party, which simply has not pulled its weight especially after losses in Haryana and Maharastra and its poor performance in Jammu and Kashmir.

In the two assembly polls due this year- Delhi and Bihar- the Congress is not in the reckoning at all, And with Mamata Banerjee even throwing her hat in the ring as the leader of the INDIA bloc, the waters have been muddied further.

However, while the INDIA alliance was full of contradictions from the start, it is now almost completely unravelling. There is no common ideological thread that binds the opposition together except to be anti BJP.

Not a single INDIA meeting has taken place since the Lok Sabha polls. The collapse of a united opposition is bad news for true democracy because it is only a united opposition that can take on the BJP at the national level.

Unfortunately, the Congress has shown no urgency for making bold changes within its own camp and internal rifts continue to tear them apart. And frankly, a Mamata or a Kejriwal cannot lead any opposition bloc.

Even though it is weakened, the Congress is still the largest pan India opposition party and that makes it imperative for it to get its act together. That is the only way for the opposition as a whole to succeed.

At the moment, both are missing and the opposition is slowly shrinking.