According to well-placed sources in NCP, the party leaders were uneasy over a few issues before the Patna opposition meeting. One, that the meeting was postponed to accommodate Rahul Gandhi’s return from US while most other seniors had committed to an earlier date. Second, it was clear at the meeting that Rahul Gandhi’s line was being towed by the Congress and the party was pushing and projecting him as the leader.
In fact, some other opposition leaders believed that no one should be projected as the leader of the unity as yet. They suggested waiting for the results to come out. Some are very uncomfortable with the idea that the Congress is projecting the former MP as the only one who is fearlessly taking on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially when someone like Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has given a resounding defeat to the saffron party.
But the Congress is on a high after the Karnataka win and amidst its calculation that it could win in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. It feels that in such a scenario, it has the legitimate claim to leading the front and can make Rahul Gandhi the face.
The fact is that few opposition parties like the TMC and Sharad Pawar’s NCP have never been comfortable doing business with Rahul Gandhi. They feel that in contrast to Sonia Gandhi, whose politics was based on listening and consensus, Rahul is staccato and demanding.
With Rahul Gandhi fighting a battle to become MP, his party has gone on an overdrive to project him as the leader of India. From reels to social media posts, programmes for Rahul Gandhi are carefully planned to showcase him as someone who is daring and refuses to come under any pressure. Without saying it clearly, some of the opposition parties face a dig where they are accused of buckling under pressure or wary of any possible ED/CBI action.
Sonia Gandhi, while forming the UPA, had made it clear that she would not want to lead but only assemble all. In the case of Rahul Gandhi, the Congress will not want to make any such sacrifice.
The biggest hurdle, of course, is to convince the other allies that Rahul Gandhi’s time has come now. There is also an element of mistrust. When Rahul Gandhi got active in politics, he was a firm believer in the mantra of ‘Ekla Cholo Re’ or that the Congress must carve its own path and not depend too much on other parties. But as Congress weakened after repeated losses and many parties like AAP and TMC got stronger and ambitious, Rahul Gandhi had to bite the bullet and accept the fact that the coalition era was here to stay.
While an emboldened Congress is no longer shy, a Rahul Gandhi push may hurt the allies’ interest, maybe at the cost of unity as not many are ready to let the Congress be the big brother.
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