UPA on its last legs

With the Bharatiya Janata Party going from strength to strength, it is evident that the days of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which ruled the Centre for a decade from 2004, are numbered. Opposition parties are trying to put together an anti-BJP front, and so far, this exercise has not yielded any positive results barring a few meetings of senior leaders.
The future of the UPA, which is headed by the Interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi, is as dismal as the future of the grand old party. A few days ago, Sharad Pawar, an ally of the Congress and amongst the senior most politicians of the country, made a significant comment that he was not prepared to head the UPA. In fact, whenever Pawar speaks, there is always an underlining political message somewhere. His comment should therefore be seen in the light of the changing political situation. Pawar’s statement effectively implies that the UPA was on its last legs and the time had come to have a new federal front. While he was not prepared to head the UPA, he was non-committal if such an offer was made to him when the new Federal Front is formed ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Pawar’s statement has certain similarities with what Pranab Mukherjee had said in an interview to India Today in 2010. Mukherjee had stated that he was not going to be a part of the Union Cabinet headed by Rahul Gandhi, thereby implying that this would never happen. Trusting his political instincts which suggested that Sonia Gandhi would never allow him to be the Prime Minister, he concentrated on becoming the President and was elected to the position in 2012.
Sharad Pawar also knows that UPA in its present form, with the Congress as its nucleus was unacceptable to the people and there would have to be a good substitute that allows leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal, M.K. Stalin, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Uddhav Thackeray and many others to have a greater say.
Sensing that this possibility of the UPA becoming defunct was becoming a reality, Rahul Gandhi on Friday gave a call for unity amongst opposition parties to fight the BJP, which according to him was dividing the country by promoting the politics of hate.
Pawar had earlier also declared that there were no differences in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra and it would fight the next election unitedly. In other words, if the Congress wanted to assert itself and dictate its terms to the Aghadi government, it should be prepared to lose some of its leaders who would choose the alliance over the present Congress leadership.
The dilemma before the Congress in particular is that it was rapidly losing relevance. It is for the first time that in a large number of states, the Congress has no Member of Parliament. The way the party is structured anyone whom the Gandhis want, would easily become the next president but it is not necessary that he may be acceptable to other opposition parties for heading an alliance against the BJP.
There are two states—Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, where Assembly polls would be held later this year. The Congress has no clear-cut strategy for these elections and since it specializes in snatching defeat even from the jaws of victory, it is unlikely that it shall win in either of the two places.
In Gujarat, the BJP has a very well-oiled organizational machinery and with Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as the party’s spearheads, it is unimaginable that the Saffron Brigade would lose to the Congress. In Himachal, where the Congress could have wrested power from the BJP, the high command is undecided on who should be leading the campaign and the state party.
The choice in this Rajput dominated hill state is between Sukhjinder Singh Sukhu, a past president and Mukesh Agnihotri, a Brahmin. The sense which most people are getting is that the leadership would opt for Mukesh Agnihotri. There is a huge leadership void in Himachal after the demise of Virbhadra Singh and the BJP is bound to take advantage of this.
There is already a talk in Delhi’s political circles, that the Himachal Chief Minister, Jairam Thakur may be replaced by Union Minister Anurag Thakur, who as per reports is hesitant to get into the state’s politics. Himachal is also the state of the BJP president, J.P. Nadda and therefore the stakes are very high. In addition, the AAP factor could also influence the outcome here.
Thus, the short point is that for the Congress to be in the race for the leadership of the Federal Front, it would have to win in Himachal or Gujarat and follow it up with a victory in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan next year.
There are also irreconcilable differences the Congress has with some of the other Opposition parties such as the Trinamool and AAP and thus its acceptance as the leader would be extremely difficult. The only way of going forward for the Opposition parties is to agree on a common minimum programme and closer to the 2024 elections, take a call on the leadership question.
Another problem that exists in the Congress is that barring someone like Kamal Nath, there is perhaps no leader aligned with the Gandhis, who can pick up the phone and speak to the front ranking opposition leaders at a short notice. This is a serious handicap. Between us.