BJP’s defeat spurs Opposition to step up alliance talks

New Delhi: Buoyed by the triumph of the  experimental alliance of the SP-BSP that won the Gorakhpur and Phulpur the Lok Sabha bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, hectic parleys have begun in the Opposition camp for stitching together a similar grouping for success in the 2019 general elections.

Shortly after the results of the three bypolls were announced on Wednesday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi held a meeting with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar in the national capital. The two leaders are reported to have discussed firming up the Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra.

Speculation is also rife that the Congress is trying to rope in the Trinamul Congress through Mr Pawar, who is scheduled to meet TMC chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on March 27-28 in the national capital.

So far the TMC chief has not shown any inclination of coming under the Congress umbrella. She has repeatedly spoken of a federal Third Front and reached out to many regional parties like the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, the DMK and the TDP.

Sources said that Mr Pawar is expected to host a meeting of Opposition parties on March 27. Senior NCP leader Praful Patel said that the Congress and all Opposition parties will invited for the meeting whose contours will be finalised by next week.

Senior political leaders feel that the run-up to 2019 will see a tug of war between the Congress and regional parties over leadership of any Opposition alliance. After the next Lok Sabha election, the Congress is expecting a 2004-like situation when the UPA-led by it came to power. The regional parties, on the other hand, are looking at a 1996 redux when the Congress supported a United Front-led government headed by Janata Dal’s H.D. Deve Gowda.

The Congress, which is beginning its first plenary session under new president Rahul Gandhi on Friday, is expected to spell out its stand on alliances with other parties in a political resolution to be adopted at the end of the three-day session.

Sources said that the political resolution is expected to talk about the drop in popularity of “Brand Modi” and the need to forge alliances to counter it.

Despite both the Congress candidates in the Uttar Pradesh by Lok Sabha bypolls forfeiting their deposits, the party is seeing a positive in the outcome. Sources claimed that the Congress had deliberately fielded only Brahmin candidates from the largely backward class seats to cut into BJP votes — a strategy that played some role in the saffron party’s defeat.  

The grand old party was in alliance with the SP in the 2017 Assembly poll but the Akhilesh Yadav-led party rebuffed it for a similar alliance this time and instead chose to seek BSP’s support which led to the historic win.

Mr Yadav on Thursday said his ties with the Congress will continue to be good but stopped short of spelling out whether he will go with the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Many sources in the Opposition camp told this newspaper that though hectic parleys are on, most regional parties agree that efforts should be on making state-level alliances and garnering as many seats as possible in the general elections.

“After that, based on the performance of the parties, the leadership issue can be resolved,” a senior leader in the know of things told this newspaper.