Opposition likely to cut a sorry figure

Asense of inevitability hangs over the Opposition camp as the parties brace themselves for the results of the presidential and vice-presidential elections. That NDA presidential nominees Ram Nath Kovind and Venkaiah Naidu will win their respective contests hands down needs no messiah to predict. The only interest centres around how much cross-voting there would be. Predictably, the benefit of the cross-voting would also not go to the Opposition but to the NDA which is still riding on a virtual Narendra Modi wave more than three years after he was swept to power, decimating the Congress party. The Opposition indeed needs to do some introspection on why it has failed to make any headway in three years. It has indeed had no positive agenda worth the name. It has not been able to challenge the government convincingly on policy issues. The quality of debates in Parliament has been weak due to lack of talent in the Opposition. The biggest blow to the Opposition has been the decision of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to vote for Kovind, breaking Opposition ranks. Though he has announced that his party would vote for the Opposition’s vicepresidential nominee Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the impending parting of ways between the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) will alienate Nitish further from the Opposition and will push him into the waiting arms of the BJP. Nitish cited his fine equation with Kovind when the latter was Governor in Patna for extending support to him but his tilt towards the BJP is all too obvious.

The other big catch for the NDA in the presidential election has been the support that Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and his brother Shivpal Yadav have extended to Kovind, going against the choice made by Mulayam’s son Akhilesh to go with Opposition nominee Meira Kumar. That their supporters too will toe Mulayam’s line is on the cards. In CPI(M)-ruled Tripura, the six MLAs of Trinamool Congress and one Congress MLA defied their parties and voted in favour of Kovind. The Trinamool had already sacked the six MLAs from the party. Their leader, Sudip Burman said they could not vote for a candidate who was being supported by the CPI (M). While Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal has been maintaining a stoic silence, its senior leader and Punjab MLA H S Phoolka did not take part in voting. AAP’s ally Lok Insaaf Party (LIP), which has two MLAs in Punjab, had already announced its support for the NDA candidate. Support for the NDA’s presidential nominee has also come from the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and from many other regional outfits. Clearly, the Kovind-Venkaiah Naidu team is in an unassailable position. With less than two years left for the Lok Sabha elections, the Opposition needs to get its act together. In Rahul Gandhi, they have a poor match for the redoubtable Narendra Modi.