Old fashioned Opposition is no more relevant, Congress on a winning streak

By O.J.George

Assembly election results in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh have proved the point that old fashioned functioning of the Opposition is no more relevant to fight the Congress Party, which is definitely on a winning streak.

In Arunachal Pradesh, Congress is the only party of reckoning, in Maharashtra Congress-NCP combine has no rival claimants for a government and in Haryana, Congress is the largest single party, although it has not secured simple majority on its own. Still, it can form a government with the help of independents or Kuldip Singh Bishnoi’s Haryana Janhit Congress.

The BJP-Shiv Sena combine has not proved to be the roaring lions as breakaway MNS of nephew Raj Thackeray has put a spanner into the hopes of the Bal-Udhav Thackeray father-son duo to be in the saddle of governance in Maharashtra.

As for the Congress, Ashok Chavan in Maharashtra, B S Hooda in Haryana and Dorjee Khandu in Arunachal are likely to be renominated by the party leadership as Chief Ministers in the respective states.

Congress can enjoy a hassle-free polity in several ways as irritants like BSP, NCP etc have been made to sit on the backfoot, apart from dealing a deathly blow to BJP in electoral politics. The BJP has already been driven back to fourth or fifth position in UP and the continued decline of the BJP-Shiv Sena combine in Maharashtra should teach them political lessons to give up old fashioned rhetorics and gain the confidence of the people by positive ideas and action.

The best bet for the Congress has been its cohesion at the highest levels, for party president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are able to pull together without irritants. Earlier, on several occasions, the dichotomy betweent the party and its government had weakened both, hitting the overall functioning.

The main opposition should convince itself that throwing gaffes at Sonia Gandhi and Rahul and deprecating Manmohan Singh as being weak, without itself projecting cogent alternatives, would not gel well with the electorate.

All the same, it should be the duty of the opposition to regain some relevance as democracy calls for multi tasking at political levels.