The battle within the Opposition space

On Monday, senior Congress leader and former chief minister of Goa, Luizinho Faleiro, resigned as a legislator of the assembly and quit his party. Mr Faleiro is all set to join the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and expressed his admiration for West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s streetfighting abilities and her win in the recent assembly polls. Mr Faleiro joins a list of leaders who have joined the TMC from the Congress in recent weeks, the most prominent being Sushmita Dev. The TMC has also picked a Congress-leaning activist, Saket Gokhale. It also welcomed former finance minister Yashwant Sinha (formerly of the Bharatiya Janata Party) before the assembly polls, and former BJP MP and minister Babu Supriyo recently. It is making a serious bid to expand in Tripura, with an eye on the 2023 polls; in Parliament, the TMC has been the most belligerent among the Opposition forces; and Ms Banerjee has made no secret of her national ambitions.

All of this is not as much a challenge for the BJP as it is for the Congress. As other parties smell its weaknesses, they are attempting to fill the vacuum — be it in the form of the election campaign the Aam Aadmi Party is running in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa or the TMC’S attempt to poach disgruntled Congress leaders in a bid to unite them under a federal umbrella or in the form of movements (for instance, the farm agitation) setting the narrative on an issue. All of this may create momentum for the Opposition, but it also highlights the contradictions within. Managing these will perhaps be as critical as fighting the battle with the political hegemon.