Bengaluru: Opposition parties, which have had little reason to cheer since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) started dominating national and regional elections in 2013 (the party-led National Democratic Alliance, or NDA, has a clear majority in the Lok Sabha and it is in power, solely or with partners, in 20 of India’s 29 states) came together to celebrate the swearing-in of Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular) and his JD(S)-Congress government on Wednesday.
Their show of unity comes amid increasing momentum of talks and efforts to build a front to take on the BJP, now clearly in pole position in Indian politics.
Joining Kumaraswamy, his father and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, who is clearly relishing his second coming as paterfamilias of the opposition, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, and his mother, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi ,were a clutch of other leaders.
Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, both from Uttar Pradesh, the state that sends the most representatives to the Lok Sabha, were there (the two are already believed to have sewn up an alliance). Mayawati’s party was the JD(S) partner in the Karnataka elections and even won one seat.
West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, who has been working to build a so-called federal front, was in attendance, as was Telugu Desam Party chief and Andhra CM N Chandrababu Naidu.
Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, the Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav, and Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Ajit Singh were there. And Sitaram Yechury of the Communist Party of India, Marxist, which played a seminal role in the creation of the UPA back in 2004, was present.
As much as they were there to celebrate the JD(S)-Congress triumph — not as much in the polls as in smart post-poll maneuvering – the leaders were also there to cock a snook at their common enemy, the BJP.
The leaders talked, in groups small and large before, during, and after the function in Bengaluru on a rainy day, although few details were made public. Analysts said that little in terms of material discussions is likely to have transpired.
