While the BJP is busy battling the farmers, there’s an interesting churn going on within the Opposition. We have had Sharad Pawar’s followers pitching for him to be the next chairperson of the UPA whenever Sonia Gandhi steps back. And given her lack of public appearances in active politics, this could be anytime soon. Pawar has denied this but it’s the sort of denial one issues when trying to keep the story alive. Again, don’t forget that it was none other than Pawar who recently stated that Rahul Gandhi (Sonia›s heir apparent) lacked ‘consistency’. Meanwhile Arvind Kejriwal, probably the one UPA ally who does not get along with Pawar, has been very active during the farmers’ agitation. If Pawar got the UPA to visit the President in a delegation, Kejriwal went on a sympathetic fast along with the farmers. And now the Aam Aadmi Party leader has announced that he will be contesting the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls due in 2022.
Is that a good move? The AAP is still to spread its wings beyond Delhi, Punjab and perhaps Haryana and Goa. Should it jump into Uttar Pradesh so soon? At a time when the BJP holds firm with a hardline Hindutva icon as the Chief Minister and the delivery of Ram Mandir as its poll plank. Should the AAP jump in and divide the anti-BJP vote which is already divided between the SP, BSP and the Congress. Given the 2017 track record, there is little chance of the SP and the Congress teaming up again. In fact since then the Congress has been targeting the SP as much as it has the BJP by putting up ‘Missing’ posters with Akhilesh Yadav’s picture on it in the Lok Sabha constituency of Azamgarh. This has riled the SP so much that it has decided that it will put up candidates against the Congress in Rae Bareli (and Amethi) and forego its earlier goodwill of giving the Gandhi family bastions a wide berth. Anyhow one of these bastions has already been breached.
Then what is Kejriwal’s game plan? Clearly, like Pawar, he sees an opening within the Opposition and is eager to own this space. There is no denying that Kejriwal has ambitions. But these have to live up to his party’s base. Hence the hurry to expand right into the one state that is known to send Prime Ministers to Delhi.
Meanwhile there is also talk that within the Congress the letter writers are getting restless as to the lack of a response from the leadership. With Sonia taking a backseat, it is Rahul Gandhi who is running the party. But he is still refusing to take over officially and also take over 24×7. Nor are there any plans to hold organisational elections for both the post of party chief and the CWC. There are murmurs that Rahul would like to wait till 2022 for that is when the official five-year term of the current presidency gets over. And in the meantime, he may appoint a proxy. Would that proxy be someone from his team, either Randeep Surjewala or K.C. Venugopal? Or would he opt for Mukul Wasnik who is also one of the 23 letter writers and yet enjoys the trust of the Gandhis.
With both Pawar and Kejriwal looking to expand their portfolio, can Sonia afford to keep the status quo linger on? And on.