A few months ago, at the Delhi launch of Congress leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram's book, the chief guest was Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Seated next to Nitish was CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. And in the front row were former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. And of course, there were MPs and leaders from across the political divide in the auditorium at the Nehru Memorial Library in the Teen Murti Bhavan, once home to India's first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru.
Nitish spoke his mind. “It is time all non-BJP parties came together,” he said. A few minutes later, he paraphrased that sentence, and said it was the need of the hour. And before the evening was out, from the dais, he asked Rahul Gandhi to take the initiative—in bringing the disparate opposition under one umbrella.
The Bihar chief minister did not talk about expanding the UPA or having a lose arrangement or a “mahagathbandhan”—a grand alliance—that would not be based on one election, like it was during the Bihar polls of 2015. But one did not have to be a genius to figure that the seasoned leader was talking about uniting to take on the saffron party that was expanding its footprints. “The BJP is not only trying to have a Congress-mukt Bharat, but will also have an opposition-mukt democracy for ever” quipped an MP over tea that evening.
The urgency of doing that appears to have dawned on the Congress leadership after the five assembly elections whose results were out on March 11. While there definitely was pressure from seniors in the Congress to have no one other than the party president Sonia Gandhi take the lead and the initiative in talking to others, she was not available for a while on account of her failing health. But since she has returned to public engagements about a fortnight ago, the Congress president has been in touch with leaders of various parties. The immediate provocation for opening the doors of 10 Janpath to a few of them, is the presidential elections due in July. But sources in the Congress say that the discussion with them was not confined to a one-point agenda.
Not surprising, therefore, that Nitish Kumar was the first leader she met. By a coincidence, the next was Yechury, followed by the CPI leader D. Raja. “ These parties have supported each other in the past, so it is not impossible that they come together now, for a larger purpose – actually to save democratic politics,” pointed out a Congress MP from the Rajya Sabha.
Even more important was the visit of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar to 10 Janpath at her invitation. The wedge between the two is legendary since he opposed her for the post of prime minister and broke away to form the Nationalist Congress Party.
Sonia is said to have called up West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, and is scheduled to receive the National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, DMK leader Stalin and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Lalu had recently echoed Nitish Kumar's sentiments, when he appealed to all the non-BJP parties to come together on a common platform to take on the saffron groups, their aggressive Hindutva and the prime minister, and to stall them from returning to power in Lok Sabha 2019. He told the media that he had also been talking to leaders of different parties on unity of non-BJP parties.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala confirmed that the Congress is in favour of unity of all regional parties and all non-BJP parties.
