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Editor, Goemkarponn
AERIAL VIEW
Then comes the criminalisation of triple talaq, invalidation of Article 370, Supreme Court verdict paving way for the construction of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and so on. The opposition leaders are under constant pressure to react and they end up fumbling for words, invariably.
Blame it on the intellectual bankruptcy or sheer cussedness of opposition leaders. Or credit Modi-Amit Shah’s earthy politics and grasp of the people’s pulse. They always have their political adversaries on a Twister mat. The opposition just can’t anticipate the duo’s next move, forget outwitting or outmanoeuvring them.
For more than a year now, the Opposition has been only holding meetings after meeting without any concrete strategy on how to tackle the BJP in forthcoming Assembly polls.
SURAJ NANDREKAR
Editor, Goemakrponn
Be it the Ayodhya Ram Mandir construction, the abrogation of Article 370, the triple talaq, demonatisation, GST etc, the Modi-Shah duo have continued to take the Opposition by surprise.
Surprisingly, the Opposition just can’t anticipate Modi-Shah’s next move and the BJP is going from one agenda to another, with a single-minded focus.
This has been the story of Indian politics for last 10 years now, while PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are at their marauding best, the Opposition just failed to regroup.
The BJP duo continue to win election after election, even as the social media says otherwise and the Opposition is only content with solitary wins like Karnataka or Telangana while Modi & Shah have the cake and eat it too.
Now you know how helpless Rahul Gandhi must feel when Modi or Amit Shah keeps spinning the wheel, leaving opposition leaders in a tangled mess. By the time the opposition gathers the ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ ammunition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already told jingoistic tales about surgical strikes on terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Just when the opposition prepares to puncture the ruling party’s ‘achhe din’ bubble, Modi moves on to talk about Balakot airstrikes.
Then comes the criminalisation of triple talaq, invalidation of Article 370, Supreme Court verdict paving way for the construction of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and so on. The opposition leaders are under constant pressure to react and they end up fumbling for words, invariably.
Blame it on the intellectual bankruptcy or sheer cussedness of opposition leaders. Or credit Modi-Amit Shah’s earthy politics and grasp of the people’s pulse. They always have their political adversaries on a Twister mat. The opposition just can’t anticipate the duo’s next move, forget outwitting or outmanoeuvring them.
For more than a year now, the Opposition has been only holding meetings after meeting without any concrete strategy on how to tackle the BJP in forthcoming Assembly polls.
Forget about naming the Prime Minister candidate, who can take on the might of Narendra Modi, the Opposition’s INDIA block has not been able to finalise the convenor so far, this is the irony.
This is simply because all the leaders who have come together to take on BJP in 2024 were enemies turned friends. So definitely there is huge lack of trust and that is the main reason why there is no consensus on the PM candidate or the convenor.
Several names have been suggested so far from Malikarjun Khatge to Nitish Kumar to Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi but there has been no decision.
The decision on seat sharing is also in bits and pieces. The AAP and Congress are making their own arrangements in Delhi, Gujarat, Punjab and Goa. The Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress have their own arrangements in Maharashtra while Mamata’s TMC, Congress and Left have their own plan in West Bengal. So where is INDIA block left?
The Opposition, after partial victory on CAA issue, believes that the BJP has finally ‘exhausted’ its core issues — Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, removal of Article 370 and the uniform civil code (the third partially addressed through the criminalisation of triple talaq). “Ab baat karne ko unke paas kya raha (what do they have left to talk about now)? You can’t talk about the same issues four years later,” an elated Congress leader says.
But the opposition camp are mistaken though.
The BJP has at least three new core issues to replace the old ones, which would keep the opposition leaders on the Twister mat for a long time to come.
Time waits for no one and the time is running out
for the Opposition if they want to make any impact in LS polls.