A copy of the Constitution of India, the National Emblem and a picture of Bharat Mata with a lion and tricolour at the entrance of Grand Hyatt Hotel… the dotted I.N.D.I.A. group was clearly at pains to showcase its patriotism at its third meeting in Mumbai on September 1.
I shall refer to this grouping as the Dotted Alliance hereinafter, for the sake of my own patriotic sentiments.
This Bharat Mata image always reminds me of Ma Durga with her vaahan the lion, representing power and valour – so close to the concept of Ma Shakti. One is used to seeing this image at events organised by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP and other organisations having faith in Bharat’s ancient traditions. So it was a bit of a surprise to see it displayed at the entrance of the opposition alliance meet, which includes parties of the Left ideology and the likes of DMK which called out for the annihilation of Sanatan Dharma soon after the Mumbai meet. Media shared the surprise with its viewers as it displayed the images again and again through the day.
Another surprise was tilak and aarti as part of the welcome ceremony. Hindu symbolism seems to have become an imperative for the 28 political parties that have come together to defeat one man who is the PM face of the only political party where posts are not inherited but earned. The laughable irony is that, even in this, unity eluded the Dotted Alliance – displayed by the disdain with which Trinamool Party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee refused to be adorned with the tilak when the lady with the aarti thali approached her.
So while the Bharat Mata imagery and tilak ritual were happy firsts for the opposition parties, nothing else was new really. Cohesion was missing bigtime, although leaders tried their level best to maintain the pretense. One needs to be sympathetic though. Surely it cannot be an easy task to share political space with your stark opponents. Take Mamata’s case. She was upset over the Congress-Left alliance in her state. So she did not stay for the joint briefing and left early without speaking to the Press. Just as well perhaps, her irritation might have shown through.
Mamata is said to have been quite annoyed with the long speeches some Left leaders delivered at the conclave, and later prodded the Congress leadership to act instead of talking and speed up the seat-sharing process. Remember, in 2019 the same Congress and CPI(M) had both rejected Mamata’s offer to come together to ‘jointly’ fight the BJP.
Interestingly, in the second meeting of the Dotted Alliance in Bengaluru, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav had backed the TMC chief and asked why the West Bengal unit of Congress was clashing with the TMC despite efforts to unite the opposition for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
When he addressed the Press in his inimical satirical style, Lalu made it a point to ask the gathering “has Mamata ji left?” and when someone told him she had a ‘plane’ to catch, he quipped laughingly “I also have a plane to catch… I’ll also leave soon”. Was he being prophetic, one wonders.
By the way, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, who initiated the unity process, had opposed the name given to the alliance – which meant the Congress did not keep him in the loop while ‘deciding’ the name. How can an alliance be called INDIA, he is said to have questioned the Congress in the Bengaluru meet. Finally he left it at: “If all of you are okay with it…”
THE BIG DECISIONS!
As the galaxy of opposition leaders gathered to address the press briefing, after the great meeting of minds, one waited with baited breadth to find out the earth-shattering (or shall we say, NDA-shattering) decisions taken by the Dotted Alliance.
As the once-relevant leaders spoke at the podium one after the other, the biggest outcomes that everyone repeated with great pride were One, that “the meeting went well” (which meant no one shouted at each other) and Second, “this is the third successful meeting” (which meant that the very fact we’re still meeting is an achievement in itself). Almost all speakers made it a point to remind the Press that the first meeting took place in Patna on the initiative of Nitish Kumar and the second in Bengaluru – as if the Press was in great danger of forgetting these crucial details. Sorry, we must sympathise here too… after all, in the absence of substance, good speakers are trained in the art of repeating inane details.
No speaker at the press briefing could resist taking PM Modi’s name. Like it or not, it was Modi, Modi all the way
Some speeches started with “I.N.D.I.A. aage bad raha hai (I.N.D.I.A. is marching ahead) which sounded almost as if they were praising the rise of India, i.e. Bharat, in the world polity. One had to remind oneself that they meant the Dotted Alliance, not the nation!
The best part was that no speaker could resist taking PM Modi’s name – to spew venom, of course. Like it or not, it was Modi, Modi all the way.
The only outcome of the conclave was that the alliance had decided on the teams that would take up different tasks ahead of the 2024 elections.
In short the only takeaway from the much-hyped five-star exercise was that the alliance “passed a resolution to jointly contest the Lok Sabha elections” (one would have thought that was obvious from the very first meeting, isn’t it!) and that seat-sharing talks would begin “immediately” (the time hasn’t arrived yet, has it?).
Seat sharing is a time bomb. Best to keep it at arms’ length as long as possible. The palpable fear among alliance partners on the seat-sharing issue is crystal clear – it’s the trickiest part and best avoided till the very end. Since the Dotted Alliance has to fall apart eventually, the façade of unity should at least be prolonged to the maximum.
And when the Press asked them ‘what next?’, the answer was – we’ll let you know when we will meet next. Great! Even that wasn’t decided!
Now that the Press briefing had happened, the media also obliged with appropriate headlines. The biggest ‘Mumbai decisions’ they could report were: “Seat-sharing at earliest, 13-member coordination team”. Wow!
JOSTLING FOR SPACE
As the alliance partners crowded on to the stage in the group photo and later at the start of the press briefing, what hit you the most was – how Time has diminished the stature of the once tall leaders of parties that used to rule the roost. The Congress, which ruled at the Centre for almost 54 years, was jostling for space on a stage along with 27 other parties, most of them regional, to try and defeat the Narendra Modi-led BJP. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi (the so-called scion of the ‘ruling dynasty’) and party president Mallikarjuna Kharge had to keep a smiling face. Surely the irony was not lost on them either.
That political relevance loses itself in a crowd was glaringly obvious when Mallikarjuna Kharge found it difficult to remember everyone‘s name as he started his speech, and compromised with a “Namaste to all”.
When Rahul Gandhi went up to the podium to speak, most of the other ‘bigwigs’ had left, including Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal. Media pointed out later that most of those who stayed back to listen to Rahul did so out of courtesy – Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray because they were virtually the hosts and Kharge because he holds the post of president in Rahul’s family party.
After the entire exercise of the Mumbai meet, alliance partner DMK dropped a bomb when Udhaynidhi Stalin called for the annihilation of Sanatan Darma. The furore over his utterances shook the foundations of the fragile alliance with every other partner having to figure out how to save face before the media and their supporters.
And then came the debate over the name ‘Bharat’. In the rearranged value system of the ‘Opposition’, every party feels they have to attack each and every move of the Modi government. So, while the Modi government has taken no stand or decision whatsoever on the name issue, Dotted Alliance parties have gone to town to oppose the naming of our country as ‘Bharat’. The Congress party’s scion perhaps needs to be reminded that he had recently embarked on a much-hyped ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ and not ‘India Jodo Yatra’.
It is a sad state of affairs for a democracy when its Opposition loses its stature. And, as of now, the Dotted Alliance falls very short of that stature. The alliance will encounter its toughest challenge when, after seat sharing, the question of the Prime Ministerial candidate arises. Daggers are sure to be drawn from all quarters. A trailer showed up ahead of this meet when “Desh Maange Nitish” posters appeared in Mumbai, though Nitish Kumar was quick to officially dismiss being in the race for the PM’s post.
Voters, please keep your fingers crossed – let the daggers do their job before the voting, and not after.
