Whiff of federal politics as regional parties gather around Mamata

A whiff of federal politics is at play in the recent round of assembly polls in four states particularly West Bengal where regional parties have lined up to support Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress at a time when the main Opposition party at the national level, Congress, is down in the dumps.

On Friday, Maharasthra’s Shiv Sena became the third regional party to announce support to TMC, stating it will not contest the West Bengal polls. Before it, Rashtriya Janata Dal from Bihar and Samajwadi Party from UP extended their support to Didi, hailing her credentials as an Opposition leader.

In what could be a warning signal to Congress, whose bargaining power has substantially fallen, this alliance indicates even regional parties with which the grand old party allied in past are not taking it as a serious challenger to the ruling BJP.

Read | West Bengal Assembly Polls: Mamata Banerjee to contest from Nandigram, gives up Bhowanipore

After Sena announced its backing to Banerjee, its MP Sanjay Raut took to Twitter saying "at the moment, it appears to be a Didi vs All fight".

For the BJP the challenge is that it may have to confront the combined might of regional parties in future, which may make some sort of an umbrella outfit, leaving the respective state space to the dominant party there.

Regional parties, especially the ruling ones, have proven to be bigger challenges for the BJP than Congress. Arvind Kerjiwal-led AAP came back to power for the third time in 2020 despite a high octane election campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. Congress, which had ruled Delhi for 15 years prior to the AAP in 2013, sank further.

Defeating such regional parties with a strong regional face would be a bigger challenge for the BJP than decimating Congress, which is in a disarray after two back-to-back Lok Sabha poll debacles. Adding to that are the party's internal woes with a vertical divide in the party over leadership issues.

Political analyst Badri Narayan, a professor, Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, says “regional parties are rushing to back Mamata Banerjee as they see the possibility of a image victory for them in case Mamata wins the poll even as BJP’s stock is rising in the West Bengal politics day by day. They are aware that Congress cannot stop the BJP in the state. Hence all of them have lined before here. Moreover, they do not have to gain anything with the rise of Congress, defeating which in the past they have established themselves in the respective states.”

Also Read | Congress trapped in secularism vs soft Hindutva dilemma

There are signs of an attempt by the regional parties to create a federal front. Soon after walking out of NDA, erstwhile ally Shiromani Akali Dal’s Prem Singh Chandumajra in December last year met Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai to work out an understanding to forge a national alliance. While this is still a far-fetched idea and next Lok Sabha polls are more than four years away, the constant decline of Congress and the confusion in the rank and file of that party seems to have spurred regional parties to look for other options to checkmate the BJP.

Congress had allied with Samajwadi Party for the 2017 assembly polls of Uttar Pradesh but the joint campaign “UP Ke Ladke” of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav bombed and BJP came to power with a massive majority. In 2020, RJD and Congress fought Bihar polls in alliance but they failed to unseat the ruling NDA. The poor show of Congress was blamed to a large extent for this. RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari trained his guns at Congress for extracting more number of seats to contest than its actual strength. Even Sena, which has backed TMC, is an alliance partner of Congress in Maharashtra government

The ripple effect of Bihar polls was that Congress is having to bargain really hard with the DMK for seats in Tamil Nadu in this round of polls. The unveiling ceremony of the former Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M Karunanidhi in December 2018 had become a big show of Opposition unity.

“See right now, right now BJP is the main challenger for all these regional parties in their states. If Mamata manages to halt the BJP’s rise in West Bengal, this gives a moral booster to them. So this is a kind of anti-BJP mobilisation by all these forces and in this they do not see much of a role for Congress. For Congress these are difficult times,” Prof Narayan said.