The possibility of Congress leading as the major opposition party is in danger. With the recent events of almost all the opposition parties uniting together on one platform to decide on a consensus candidate for Presidential and VP polls, the consequences of these meeting were not very successful.
Talking about the latest update, JD(U) had readily extended its support to oppositions’ VP candidate Gopal Krishna Gandhi, unlike the backing up of NDA Presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind. Significantly the reason given by JD(U) for supporting Ram Nath was that the opposition delayed a lot in announcing its candidate, it could have named the candidate before NDA did. Likewise, for the announcement of the VP candidate, no credit goes to Congress as it is believed that it was Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress which took the lead gathering all the opposition parties together.
These incidents are raising questions like, will Congress survive as the main Opposition party. Questions are also being raised over the leadership of the party. All the oppositions want a leader behind whom they can unite and stand as one single opposition, but they do not see these leadership skills in Rahul Gandhi. There is a succession crisis in Congress. Sonia Gandhi has been a big leader, but right now she is just a temporary platform behind which the party is trying to consolidate.
According to social scientist Shiv Visvanathan, Rahul Gandhi is more of an absent leader, if not a part-time leader. He has pointed out a few occasions when the presence of Rahul was needed and the leader was not there. Speaking about the farmer’s unrest in Madhya Pradesh, he said that Rahul went off for a visit to his grandmother when he was needed here in the country to lead the party. Secondly, he pointed out that Rahul returned from his vacation just a day ahead of the launch of GST, he could have returned earlier and gather all the opposition parties together to stand collectively against Modi government for the launch of GST.
It was on 29 May after internal discussions spread over three days, the Congress announced at a 4 pm that the party would boycott the midnight launch of GST. Had the party taken the decision earlier it could have convinced more parties to stand with them. Though Trinamool Congress and RJD supported Congress, NCP and JD (U) decided to send a leader each to Parliament for the launch. These parties complained that they were waiting for Congress all the time but their decision came too late and they decided to attend the launch.
Janata Dal (Secular) said its leader HD Deve Gowda would not only attend but also share the dais with PM Narendra Modi on the midnight launch. He said that “We were waiting for you all this while. You should have called a meeting of Opposition parties and taken everybody on board.” On the eve of the high-profile function, the Opposition was anything but united. The Congress had failed to lead from the front and gather the Opposition together on an issue it wanted to confront the government.
Social scientist Shiv Visvanathan said that “There is no Opposition today, Congress is unable to garner the support of Opposition parties. That is precisely the tragedy. It becomes like a huge tamasha. If we were to do an audit of all these tamashas, you will see it hasn’t added anything to the Congress or to Opposition unity.”
Congress should start taking decisions and brush its leadership skills if it wants to continue as the leading Opposition party.