In ancient India, courts had a jester, Vidushak, a person who delivered subtle messages entwined with entertainment. Lalu Prasad Yadav donned that mantle while delivering the concluding remarks at the 15-party conclave in Patna. The BJP's constant refrain about the unity bid initiated by Nitish Kumar was, "Inka dulha kaun hai? (who is their bridegroom?)" The lack of a central face in the non-BJP ranks, referred to as the "Opposition", was thus underscored. Lalu Yadav's ludicrous comment on Rahul Gandhi's beard - with a reference to Narendra Modi - and his advice, "aap dulha baniye, hum sab baraat mein chalengey (you become the bridegroom, we shall be part of the wedding procession)" was said both in jest and in gravity. At one go Lalu Yadav provided a reply to the BJP and also ensured that Nitish Kumar, who was at the centre stage being the convenor and the host of the June 23 confabulation, was not projected as the kingpin.
As things stand, Rahul Gandhi, after his conviction and subsequent disqualification, is out of the race in 2024. (Unless he gets a reprieve in the courts, where his appeal is pending.) Therefore, using him as a pivot for unity does not chagrin those in the non-Congress parties who have reservations about his abilities. His image of not being a serious, 24X7 politician, has changed somewhat after his Bharat Jodo Yatra. As the participants in Patna pointed out, the conclave was attended by representatives from "Kanyakumari to Kashmir" - all the states through which the Yatra had traversed were represented in Patna.
Lalu Yadav is the Phantom of the solidarity move, which germinated in a meeting he had with Sonia Gandhi on September 25 last. He was accompanied by Nitish Kumar, who had then recently severed his ties with the BJP. This was Lalu's first political engagement after he had been taken ill, which left him out of circulation for many months. Thereafter, he went to Singapore for his kidney transplant. The unity effort was amplified after he returned in February. Nitish Kumar was accompanied by Lalu's son and successor, Tejashwi Yadav, whenever he met with leaders across the country to extend an invite.
This was Lalu's first political appearance after he recouped. In the meeting with Sonia Gandhi in September, it had been decided that Nitish Kumar would play a role in reconciling differences between the Congress and some regional parties with which it has been at loggerheads traditionally. The Friday meeting was the initial step towards the fruition of that effort. Lalu Yadav as Bihar's Chief Minister had stopped Lal Krishna Advani's Rath Yatra in 1990. Though that ultimately could not stall the rise and rise of the BJP, even now Lalu feels that he has a role in filibustering the saffron party's juggernaut. In this, he assigns a pivotal role to the Congress. His surreal eulogy for Rahul Gandhi at Patna was an indication of that gameplan.
A hoarding put up in Patna by Janata Dal (United ) said, "Dalon ka nahin Bharatiya dilon ka mahagathbandhan (Grand unity not of parties but of Indian hearts)". This objective was partially achieved. Thirteen of the 15 participating parties seemed to have come on the same page. Seat-sharing or a common programme was not hammered out. It was not on the Patna agenda either. An intention to continue interacting and seek a way forward clearly emerged.
The Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had different tractates.
The onus for organising further confabulation is now on the Congress. Shimla, which had initially been suggested by Congress as the venue for the first meeting in place of Patna, as the party is in power in Himachal Pradesh, has now been accepted as the next stop of the anti-BJP caravan.
The drafting of a common programme and the outline of a possible seat sharing agreement may take place in Shimla sometime in the second week of July.
In July 2003 the Congress has adopted in Shimla a 14-point Shimla Sankalp (Resolve) which drew the roadmap for the formation of the United Progressive Alliance in 2004 - it enabled the Congress to be in power sans a majority of its own for a decade thereafter. Lalu Yadav was one of the initial allies of the Congress in those days. While the Trinamool, despite its reservations, is likely to be in Shimla, the participation of AAP is under a cloud.
As expected, AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal was the bull in the China shop. His effort to cajole the Congress to commit its support to vote out the Delhi Services Ordinance in parliament proved futile. This, despite a majority of the participants having committed their support to AAP. Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, who have kept Kejriwal's request for a meeting pending since May 26, refused to relent. Kharge did not outright reject AAP's plea. His premise was that such issues of parliamentary discourse are best scheduled in pre-session floor coordination meetings and ought not to be the agenda of larger political confabulation.
Rahul Gandhi took umbrage at the utterances of some AAP spokespersons who were casting aspersions on the Congress even while the Patna meet was in progress. Kejriwal and his team, which included Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, decided to skip the post-meet media briefing and drove off to the airport in a huff. DMK's MK Stalin too left, but he had no disagreements; DMK was among the 13 parties agreeable to "dilon ka mahagathbandhan".
Mamata Banerjee began her Bihar visit by calling on Lalu at his home and touching his feet. Her gesture was reflective of the key role Lalu plays in the effort. In the United Front days of 1996-98, Lalu had stymied Mulayam Singh Yadav and both HD Devegowda and IK Gujaral emerged as Prime Ministers thanks to Lalu's behind-the-scenes manoeuvres. Thus anyone with national ambition paying obeisance to Lalu is not unprecedented.
Mamata Banerjee had suggested Patna as the venue to Nitish Kumar. In her comment at the media briefing she objected to the participating parties being referred to as "opposition". She was right - six ruling parties of states, including her own, were present. She did not voice her reservation on the Left and on Congress in the media meet but in the meeting she took umbrage at the dharnas against her government, organised by the Congress in West Bengal. In Murshidabad, meanwhile, Bengal Congress chief and leader of Congress in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, berated the Trinamool as a "party of thieves".
The Bengal panchayat elections are marked by bitter acrimony on the ground between the Left and Congress on one side, and the BJP and the ruling Trinamool. The Calcutta High Court had to order the deployment of central police forces to ensure polling is peaceful.
While addressing the National Press Club in Washington DC on June 2, Rahul Gandhi said, "The Opposition is well united; a bit of give and take is required."
In the early hours of June 23 he flew back from his US sojourn. He was received at the Delhi airport by Mallikarjun Kharge and KC Venugopal. The trio then flew to Patna. Their first stop in the Bihar capital was the historic Sadaqat Ashram of 1921 vintage, set up as a Congress office after the Champaran Satyagraha. Addressing party workers there, Kharge said that the initiative for the opposition meeting had been taken by Rahul Gandhi.
Indeed, the meeting had been rescheduled to suit Rahul Gandhi's travel plans. Lalu had telephoned him to ensure he reaches Patna on time. After the meeting, when Nitish Kumar briefed the media first, as the convenor, the next person he beckoned at to speak was Rahul Gandhi, who yielded the space to Kharge. Rahul spoke later. In the meeting, he said, "I came to Patna without any memory, without any history of likes and dislikes." Addressing the media, he stressed the need for accommodation and flexibility. Clearly the strobe light was on him. He seemed to emerge as the fulcrum. Lalu's eulogy, which came towards the end, when the AAP delegation had returned to Delhi, skipping the media meet, and Mamata Banerjee had left, only underscored Rahul Gandhi's pivotal role.
No written statement emerged in Patna. In a major departure from earlier conclaves, there was no photo-op of leaders raising their hands jointly. Significantly, while there is criticism that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not take questions from the media, on a day he fielded a tough question on India's democracy at a White House press conference in Washington DC, the combined opposition leadership's media meet ended abruptly, soon after the leaders had their say-no questions were entertained.
A beginning has been made. However to say that the Patna confabulation pits together the 60 percent voters who opted not to vote for thr BJP in 2019 may be farfetched. The Biju Janata Dal, Bhartiya Rashtra Samithi, YSRCP, AIMIM, Janata Dal (Secular), Bahujan Samaj Party, Shiromani Akali Dal and many other parties who had their share of the "60 % pie" are not part of the unity moves, which, in any case, are in a nascent stage.
Politics is not mere arithmetic. Apart from calculus, chemistry too plays a role.
The ruling BJP took Patna seriously. Amit Shah in Jammu and Kashmir, JP Nadda in Odisha, Smriti Irani in Delhi and Ravi Shankar Prasad and Sushil Modi in Patna took pot shots at the conclave. Nadda reminded Lalu and Nitish that they were hosting in Jayaprakash Narain's Patna the grandson of Indira Gandhi, who had jailed Opposition leaders during the Emergency.
Clearly, in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, India's politics is slated to reach its acrimonious nadir.
Tailpiece: June 23, the day chosen for the Patna conclave, was the death anniversary of two divergent politicians, who, in their times, carved a niche in history. The founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, died in a Kashmir hospital under detention on June 23, 1953. He had been arrested by the government of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on May 8 as he had opposed special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The abrogation of Article 370 by the present government was the culmination of Mukherjee's sacrifice. On June 23, 1980, Sanjay Gandhi, who had been the fulcrum of the revival and return to power of the Congress after the 1977 rout, died in an air crash. Neither the BJP, which traces its roots to the Jan Sangh, nor the Congress, paid tribute to their past leaders on this day.
(Shubhabrata Bhattacharya is a retired Editor and a public affairs commentator.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.