NEW DELHI:
Congress failing to get majority in
Karnataka has lifted spirits of regional parties like Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, N Chandrababu Naidu Telegu Desam party or K Chandrashekhar Rao’s Telangana Rashtriya Samity, who have been pushing for opposition unity, but without Congress having a leadership role.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was among the first leaders in the opposition to have come up with the idea of a “federal front” that seem to have struck a chord with her counterparts in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and a few others who belong to the opposition camp but are clearly not comfortable with
Rahul Gandhi leading the pack.
The three chief ministers have been in close touch for the last couple of months since Naidu quit the NDA and KCR visited Kolkata to meet Banerjee during the budget session of Parliament.
Banerjee was one of the first leaders to react on Tuesday as soon as early trends pointed at Congress trailing and H D Devegowda’s JD(S) making gains. “If Congress had gone into an alliance with JDS, the result would have been different. Very different,” told the media. She congratulated H D
Deve Gowda just before his son Kumaraswamy met Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala to stake claim with Congress support.
In fact, when Rahul Gandhi expressed his interest to be the Prime Minister in 2019, saying he “could be PM if Congress got a majority,” Banerjee was quick to respond saying "he is free to give his opinion. But fact is, in the present situation of the country, the Congress can never have a majority of its own."
With her response to poll results, the TMC chief was simply reiterating her federal-front formula of a “one-on-one” contest against BJP in every state on the basis of the strength of the regional parties there. She meant allowing the entire space to the strongest party in every region or state so that the vote against BJP is not split to the saffron party’s advantage. For instance, as the strongest party in Bengal, TMC should get to fight all the seats against BJP in 2019, for best results. She had also discussed the idea with former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on her visit to the capital during the budget session.
Banerjee floated the idea of a “federal front” with Congress as part of it, but not in the lead role, soon after Rahul Gandhi was elected Congress president last December. Since many of the anti-BJP parties today including some erstwhile allies like Shiv Sena or TDP, have followed anti-Congress politics, it is easier for them to share space with Congress as equal partner rather than join a camp which is led by Congress.