The Congress’s war of words with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal over seat-sharing as well as the Janata Dal (United)’s tussle with ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar are exposing the political disputes that hamstring the INDIA bloc. The TMC and JD(U) are also struggling with intra-party conflicts, casting further doubts on the stability of the alliance.
Apart from the crisis over political understanding, a leadership struggle seems to be simmering since Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal’s proposal to make Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge the face of the bloc. The pitch purportedly not only irked some senior Congress leaders, including the Gandhis, but also surprised other allies including the JD(U) and DMK who were not consulted.
The actions and summonses of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are also keeping senior opposition leaders such as Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren, and Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav uncomfortable. TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee too has been intermittently appearing before the ED for over two years. The mention of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s name in the charge sheet of an alleged land scam case has added to the consternation. The parties have termed any ED action “political vendetta”, but many are jittery as some senior opposition politicians arrested earlier are yet to get bail.
So, conflicts within and among parties, summonses by the ED, and seat-sharing tussles are primarily the issues plaguing the INDIA opposition coalition. In the thick of such serious challenges, the Congress has announced its Bharat Nyay Yatra, from the country’s east to west. The yatra is expected to pass through the eastern states of West Bengal, and Bihar where INDIA constituents are in power. However, senior leaders of these parties — JD(U), RJD, and Trinamool Congress — say it was not discussed or planned after consulting them. A senior RJD leader said that the Congress is not budging from its dictatorial traits and that it is trying to gain an upper hand on the alliance’s agenda and leadership despite losing two states to the BJP in recent polls.
Faction
Comments of senior members of Trinamool Congress including its West Bengal president Subrata Bakshi and state secretary Kunal Ghosh are feeding speculation that chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek are going through a rough patch in their relationship. A series of statements made by Ghosh, believed to be one of the closest associates of Abhishek, and Bakshi, a faithful follower of Mamata, indicate all is not well between the two top leaders of the party.
In the face of speculation over political friction between the two leaders, Bakshi, while addressing colleagues on the TMC foundation day, said that he expected Abhishek Banerjee to fight elections and not step back. He added that the party leaders will fight the BJP together in Bengal. Ghosh reacted to the statement, saying Abhishek is the leader of the party, and there’s no reason for him to stay away from elections.
A few days ago, Ghosh reacted to the appointment of Rajiv Kumar, the ex-Kolkata police commissioner, as the acting DGP of the state. Taking to social media, he said that Kumar is an efficient officer, but he “should not arrest innocents as he did earlier” and those actions won’t be forgiven. Incidentally, Kunal Ghosh was arrested in 2013 by the Bidhannagar police commissionerate when Rajiv Kumar was the commissioner there.
Friction
Political observers from Bihar say all is not well in Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), with its former national president Rajiv Ranjan (also known as Lalan Singh) allegedly veering towards Lalu Prasad Yadav and other senior members of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). However, a section of JD(U) and RJD leaders dismisses this as a “political hypothesis and rumour-mongering” by rivals to create confusion ahead of the seat-sharing process for the Lok Sabha elections. Amid such speculation, Nitish Kumar took over the reins of the party as Lalan Singh stepped down from his position of national president last week.
Kumar, despite being the prime mover for the INDIA front, is yet to get “appropriate recognition” from alliance partners, which disappointed him, said a senior leader of his party who did not wish to be named. This is also linked to the alleged fissures surfacing between the RJD and JD(U) — both constituents of the opposition alliance.
CM Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD have not been seen sharing a stage over the past two weeks. Yadav skipped at least three major events, including the state’s global investors’ meet in Patna and a dairy meet, though he was supposed to attend all of them.
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