INDIA comes into being, to take NDA head-on

Bengaluru, the capital city of Karnataka popularly renowned as the Silicon Valley of the country, Science city, the hub of public sector undertakings, and Garden City… boasts any number of such distinctions to its credit. The cosmopolitan cultured paradise for the whole countrymen is much ahead in making history as well. The combined opposition parties’ conclave which began on Monday and concluded today is a testimony of the city’s nature in stepping into the pages of political history.

Division of Congress: Apart from the pre-independent era Bengaluru has been in the history pages for a variety of reasons. The Indian National Congress for record sake split for the first time at the Lal Bagh glass house in the city. Thanks to S Nijalingappa, a towering personality and an honest politician in the literal sense and his like-minded friends in the Congress trying to have an upper hand on the party paved the way for a split in 1969. The game plan of the old men was revealed to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by none other than CK Jaffer Shariff, an office boy of the KPCC office cum driver of S Nijalingappa. Thanks to the candid disclosure, CK Jaffer Shariff, overnight became a close confidant of Indira Gandhi and rose to meteoric heights all along later. Perhaps, that’s another part of history for the time being.

Rise of United Front: Even during the regime of Ramakrishna Hegde, as the head of the first non-Congress an attempt was made to form an opposition alliance which later came to be known as the United Front in the early Nineties. The Congress (O) and Bharatiya Jansangh of the state merged with the Janata Party in 1977 only to re-emerge with different names after the fall of the party government in the centre. The hoodwinking of the Janata Parivar factions with both the Congress and BJP keeps continuing to date.

Galaxy of opposition parties in 2018: In the 2018 Assembly general elections, both BJP and Congress failed to form a government on their own falling short of a majority. Then, BJP won 104 and Congress in 80 constituencies in a house of 224 seats. However, Congress extended unconditional support to the Janata Dal-Secular party with a strength of 40 legislators to form the government under the leadership of HD Kumaraswamy. All the entire opposition party leaders and most of the non-BJP chief ministers attended the swearing-in ceremony as a show of strength and unity against the BJP. But, such unanimity was short-lived and a photo opportunity as the BJP keeps fondly taunting. The JDS-INC alliance government was short-lived as 14 Congress and three JDS legislators including H Vishwanath, state JDS President defected to BJP.

INDIA comes into being: The two days deliberations of 26 parties opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP and the NDA which concluded today here announced the new name to the alliance as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). Probably this is the first time that such a long sentence has been named to any front in the country.

Next meet in Mumbai: Mallikarjun Kharge, President of All India Congress Committee who also presided over the two days of deliberations announced that the next meeting of the new alliance will be held in Mumbai and dates for the same will be informed soon. When asked about the chief and face of the new front, he quipped by saying that an 11-member committee has been formed to take a call on the same. He also parried queries on the seats to be contested by the parties as some of them have been fighting one another in different states and claimed that it is not a big issue to be discussed.

Voice of scribes silenced: Interestingly and as expected all leaders who shared their opinions about the two days deliberations kept on harping that they have united not to fight against the BJP but to stand with the citizens as their voices have been suppressed by the present government. But when the media persons tried to put forth their questions, they were found being snubbed for lack of time. The opposition leaders spent two days discussing the way countrymen have been silenced by the BJP government. But intriguingly they found nothing objectionable and convenient enough to silence the voice of the media for reasons best known to themselves.

-Manohar Yadavatti