Ever since she returned after her medical check up in US, Sonia Gandhi has been on ground, meeting leaders from other parties and drafting strategy for the president election due this year. The agenda seems one, to oppose NDA’s presidential candidate and stop the growing dominance of BJP in the national politics.
In last few days, Sonia Gandhi has been seen meeting leaders like Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of JD(U), CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI’s D Raja. The talks have been around coming up with a joint candidate for the president election who can stand in front of NDA’s candidate. The agenda is to stop BJP from promoting the hard lining Hindutva attitude, which has been criticised lately for increase in violence by cow vigilantes.
According to sources, no name has been discussed yet. However, the opposition parties have been agreeing on terms to give a tough competition to the Modi government. 16 parties have succeeded in opposing BJP led government in the parliament and the same is now expected at the time of the polls.
The whole campaign has had one strange thing to notice. Rahul Gandhi has not been visible openly putting his views and as the old times, Sonia Gandhi is leading the campaign. Over the last couple of years, Congress has started a few campaigns under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, however, after the defeat in recently concluded assembly elections, it seems like Congress is not looking to take any chances.
According to highly placed sources, the opposition camp will not announce a nominee until there is an announcement from NDA about their presidential candidate. It will be necessary for the opposition camp to examine the social and political credentials of NDA candidate before finalising a name to oppose him.
After the recent assembly elections, BJP has grown in number as well in confidence. According to a report published recently, BJP needs support of just one or two small regional political parties to conquer the elections and looking at growing credentials and dominance, it does not seem too hard.