Opposition unity: Will it happen at least now?

After the ‘Maha shock’ in 2024 when the BJP Shinde Sena juggernaut rolled mercilessly over the Uddhav-Sena-NCP-Congress combine, winning a massive 235 of the total 288 seats, comes an almost similar verdict from the politically savvy state of Bihar. Here the BJP-JDU alliance has won an overwhelming 205 of the 243 seats leaving the Opposition Maha gathbandan far behind with around 35 seats.

It is obvious that the Opposition INDIA front has once again miserably failed to counter the ruling NDA’s carefully devised plan to retain power and has fallen by the wayside with a handful of seats. While countering Nitish Kumar is no easy task considering the formidable reputation he has built up through the decades as a clean and performance-oriented politician, the sorry seat tally of the Opposition goes to show that people of Bihar have hardly been impressed with what the Opposition had to offer them.

For one, the wrangling over seat sharing between the RJD and Congress continued till the last minute creating doubts in the minds of voters on how stable this alliance would be. In the end, the parties decided to have ‘friendly fights’ in some seats adding to the nagging doubts over whether they would be able to present a united face in the elections.

On the other side, the Modi-Shah poll machine had unleashed a well-oiled campaign while taking pains to set to rest any doubts over the CM choice. It would be Nitish again, they averred, taking the wind out of the sails of the Opposition, which had proudly trumpeted that there was no confusion over its CM candidate Tejashwi Yadav.

Other than all that talk of Jungle Raj returning if Tejashwi was voted to power and of the many scams his father Lalu was allegedly involved in, what really did the Opposition in was the trust factor. Voters do not change their preferences so fast unless they have very strong and plausible reasons to do so and the big question which the RJD’s poll managers will have to ask themselves is this: Did they do enough to convince Bihar’s electorate that there were strong enough reasons to dump the Nitish regime and install an alternative led by Tejashwi in his place? Now that the polls, are over, there is an urgent need to firm up Opposition unity so that those in power as the Centre, in their new-found enthusiasm, do not dare to ride roughshod over democratic aspirations.

Discordant voices are already emerging in the Opposition camp with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee indicating that she would not like to fight the coming Assembly polls in alliance with the Congress. Mamata in Bengal, MK Stalin in Tamil Nadu and Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala are possibly the only remaining pillars of resistance we have to stop the saffronists from running away with the honours in every coming poll battle.

We cannot afford to have them speaking in divergent voices for it would do no good to the cause of opposition unity. This nation desperately ends a valiant and united opposition which can keep the flag of resistance flying high against the manoeuvres of the ruling front to stablilise themselves in power. And if that does not happen, the prospects for democracy look indeed bleak.