Rahul's disqualification could forge Opposition unity

On Friday, Opposition leaders, including those who in the recent past refused to walk with the Congress, slammed the Narendra Modi government for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha.

Opposition sources said Rahul’s expulsion could forge sentimental unity among the parties while they work on electoral adjustments in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.

As proof of this, the Congress will organise a protest march next week, with at least 12 Opposition parties, including TMC and AAP, set to participate.

However, BJP leaders said Opposition unity against their party, and Modi’s charisma, has yet to work even where anti-BJP parties came together, including recently in the Tripura Assembly polls where the Congress and Left parties allied.

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“One zero joining another zero leads to a bigger zero,” Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said. A BJP leader said the BJP governments were getting reelected on “positive mandates, just as the governments of Sheila Dikshit, Naveen Patnaik and Y S Rajasekhar Reddy”.

Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao, one of the initial backers of the putative federal front, said this was not the time for differences among political parties.

Rao said all democrats should condemn the misdeeds of the BJP government to safeguard democracy and Constitutional values in the country, terming it “a black day in the history of democracy in India” and Modi’s rule has overshadowed the Emergency.

“In PM Modi’s New India, Opposition leaders have become the prime target of BJP! While BJP leaders with criminal antecedents are inducted into the Cabinet, Opposition leaders are disqualified for their speeches. Today, we have witnessed a new low for our Constitutional democracy,” Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee tweeted.

“Democratic India is an oxymoron now,” Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s national general secretary, said.

BJP’s Bengal leader Suvendu Adhikari said Banerjee’s support for Rahul stemmed from her fear since she faces court cases.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who had last week ruled out any truck with the Congress, said Rahul’s disqualification was the BJP’s tactic to distract people’s attention from inflation, unemployment and an “industrialist friend” sinking India’s money.

He said the BJP in UP got false cases lodged against SP’s Azam Khan, his son Abdullah and others to get them disqualified as MLAs.

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal described Gandhi’s disqualification as shocking and called on the public to rise against the BJP’s “arrogant” power.