When will the Opposition get it right?

Politics in North has just started warming up. While all attempts by other regional leaders to bring all opposition parties on one platform failed, the JD(U) leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is considered as a clever politician, seem to have understood what exactly is the missing link and why the opposition is not able to unite.

Political experts believe that Nitish Kumar has one of the sharpest brains among the political leaders in the country. He is completely aware of his strengths and weaknesses and hence he is not pitching himself as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the opposition parties.

Unlike Mamata Banerjee, K. Chandrashekar Rao and Arvind Kejriwal, Nitish felt that Congress still has a role to play in any alliance that is formed against the BJP. He is making all-out efforts to isolate BJP and form a national-level Mahagathbandhan. If Nitish succeeds in this campaign, then surely it will increase the troubles for the BJP.

The BJP, too, seems to have smelled the rat and hence has intensified its attack on Nitish. The saffron party has started targeting Nitish Kumar from Bihar to Delhi. Nitish knows well that the opposition-ruled states and their statistics may hold the key to the Lok Sabha election 2024 as West Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha seats and the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC is in power. In Jharkhand, the JMM led by Hemant Soren is in power and the state has 14 seats. Kerala has 20 Lok Sabha seats and the Left is ruling the state. In Telangana, KCR is ruling and it has 17 seats. The DMK-led by MK Stalin is having its government in Tamil Nadu and it has 39 Lok Sabha seats, in Punjab the AAP is in power and it has 13 seats.

Besides these, Maharashtra is another state where NCP leader Sharad Pawar has a considerable influence. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats. Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have Congress governments and they respectively have 25 and 11 Lok Sabha seats out of a total of 53 MPs. There are many states where the Congress has zero seats including Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Delhi and Himachal.

The advantage Nitish has in trying to stitch the opposition unity is that officially he denied the ambition of becoming the Prime Minister, though political commentators feel that his target undoubtedly is PM's chair. However, the biggest obstacle in uniting all parties for the present is the Congress which is maintaining that being the biggest political formation it should be the fulcrum of any alliance. It is not averse to opposition unity as Rahul Gandhi in Nagercoil said. It also believes that opposition unity is required and it is a positive sign, provided the thoughts can be put into action. There is a possibility that Mamata Banerjee may agree to go with Congress but what remains to be seen is what would be the stand of TRS. The pink party is against any alliance with Congress. Moreover, it is contemplating to launch its own party to gamble in national politics. Back in Telangana, it considers Congress as number one enemy. So, if TRS objects to Congress party being the fulcrum, will there be opposition unity without TRS? What would be AAP stance is another million-dollar question. AAP has high ambitions. After Punjab, it wants to come to power in Gujarat and wants to test waters in Telangana, too. Whether Nitish will succeed in convincing them is the big question? Certainly, the task ahead is not an easy one.