JOIN USCan dinner diplomacy lead to Opposition unity?
It is somewhat odd that a galaxy of Opposition leaders who want the Congress to be a part of a united Opposition formation for the 2024 General Election should meet at the residence of dissident Congress leader Kapil Sibal. It is even stranger that some of them criticised the Gandhi family and the Congress as if they had come prepared to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
One might be forgiven, therefore, for disagreeing with reports that celebrated the event as a great show of Opposition unity, preparing for 2024. Formally a celebration of Sibal’s birthday, it was attended not only by anti-BJP Opposition leaders but also by representatives of parties not averse to supporting the BJP-the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the Telugu Desam Party and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). These parties and the YSR Congress, also represented at the dinner, have not been part of the Opposition’s coordination effort in Parliament.
The dinner meeting took place exactly a year after 23 Congress leaders (G-23) had written a letter of dissent to Congress president Sonia Gandhi in August 2020. A year later, many of them have been accommodated by the party. Ghulam Nabi Azad was made chief of the party’s Covid19 relief task force. Ashok Chavan was given charge of evaluating the Kerala, Assam, Puducherry and West Bengal state assembly election results. Manish Tiwari was also made a member of the election evaluation committee. Mukul Wasnik was nominated to a special committee to assist the Congress president in organisational and operational matters. Anand Sharma and Shashi Tharoor were nominated to the committee on foreign affairs, and Azad and Verappa Moily to the committee on national security. Manish Tiwari is a likely candidate for the post of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha if the present incumbent is removed.
While the accommodation process has slowed down in the last two months, nothing suggests it is over. Apparently, it may be temporarily stalled till party deliberations over the possible induction of poll strategist Prashant Kishor are completed. That could necessitate changes in the party structure.
Although Sibal has not yet been accommodated, it may not be correct to view the dinner he hosted as expressing disgruntlement with the Gandhi family. More likely, his birthday was a moment for the dissidents to signal their unhappiness at the slow pace of party reform. An ostensible attempt at forging the Opposition only showcased their considerable political skills.
Still, Opposition coordination has not lagged for their absence. It was evidenced not only in the meeting of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi with Mamata Banerjee and the breakfast meeting hosted by Rahul Gandhi but also in parliamentary coordination meetings organised by Deputy Leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge. At least three such well-attended coordination meetings have been held with Opposition leaders in the Monsoon Session with Rahul Gandhi’s participation.
Those who attended these meetings remark on the eagerness of an energised Opposition for coordinated action. They also note the new found respect amongst the attendees for the courageous stand taken by Rahul Gandhi on issues ranging from the disastrous mishandling of the pandemic, the dire state of the economy, growing unemployment, deliberately ignoring the farmers’ protest and his unequivocal stand on the use of Pegasus spyware. There is little substance to the argument that dissident leaders needed to push the party towards joint Opposition action.
Moreover, there were a few false notes struck by some political representatives. Naresh Gujral of the SAD suggested that the Congress and the Opposition would be better off without the Gandhis. Not much else could have been expected from the representative of a Sikh party at loggerheads with the Congress in Punjab. Nor was it appropriate for him to criticise dynastic politics as his own Rajya Sabha seat is thanks to the political capital inherited from his illustrious father, IK Gujral, once an Indira Gandhi acolyte.
Similarly hollow were BJD leader Pinaki Mishra’s claims that the Congress was not in a dialogue with his party. The BJD has yet to earn its anti-BJP spurs at a national level, as opposing it in Odisha is an electoral compulsion. Perhaps the host should have countered such accusatory views.
Despite underlining their unity efforts, the Opposition leaders got their optics slightly wrong. A parallel process seemingly initiated by Congress dissidents is unlikely to achieve Opposition unity. Even inadvertently, a Sharad Pawar or a Lalu Yadav cannot be seen as part of the internal factionalism of the Congress.
However, it is more ominous if the Congress dissidents were demonstrating their political acceptability among the wider political class. That may be read as a sign of where they may be forced to go in the post-2024 scenario unless their ambitions are accommodated in the Congress.
(The writer is a journalist based in Delhi)
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