While estranged allies DMK and AAP skipped the INDIA bloc’s floor leaders’ meeting on Monday, the presence of the diminished TMC and Shiv Sena (UBT) contingents highlighted the bloc’s shrinking strength. NCP-SP leader Supriya Sule, citing vocal cord problems, also remained silent, prompting speculation among some allies over the timing, especially as her party, like the DMK, remains ambivalent on the proposed Delimitation Bill.
The strains were visible elsewhere too. Even as INDIA bloc MPs protested in the Lok Sabha, DMK MPs staged a parallel protest against the Congress government in Karnataka over the proposed Mekedatu dam, underscoring the bitterness in Congress-DMK ties. With the delimitation issue already exposing fault lines, many believe the bloc may struggle to mount a united challenge to the government’s legislative agenda, including its proposed Bill to penalise disrespect to the national song.
Sources at bloc’s floor leaders meeting said the Congress managers, including Jairam Ramesh, made known to allies the party’s scepticism about CJP and claimed the outfit a creation of BJP-RSS to divert the student’s issues from the opposition parties’ platforms. While some allies wanted to raise Wanchuk’s fast in Parliament, Congress side is learnt to have said it should raise paper leak issues in general. Finaly, the meeting decided to raise in the House both paper leak and Ayodhya donation theft issues. Some in the SP privately wondered whether the government was tapping CJP to divert attention from the Ayodhya temple theft issue.
Notably there was no decision of any INDIA bloc delegation jointly visiting the CJP agitators at Jantar Mantar. While MPs of SP, AAP, Left did visit the CJP agitators on Monday, the Congresas didn’t.
However, some non-Congress opposition leaders feel if CJP had gained traction at the cost of the main opposition party’s plank, the Congress and Rahul Gandhi too must share the blame for giving the latter’s foreign trip priority over holding the party’s scheduled-and-yet-cancelled students’ conclaves against paper leak at Prayagraj, Patna and Delhi.
