New Delhi There could be no opposition unity in the 2024 general elections without the Congress, the party said on Sunday, adding that it has started a “clear-cut initiative” to bring all like-minded outfits on a common platform, asserting that it will “play its role in a bigger manner”.
The party leaders, however, accused some opposition outfits of having two faces and “trying to save” Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the controversy over the Adani Group, which has seen its stocks being hammered after a damaging report by US short seller Hindenburg Research.
The Congress knows its role “very well” and its sole objective is to bring down the Lok Sabha tally of the Bharatiya Janata Party, said KC Venugopal, Congress general secretary in charge of organisation.
The party was not aiming for a pan-India pact, but state-based alliances, functionaries said. Congress-led coalitions have always shaped up after the election, they argued, declining to be named.
The Congress’s clarification for an alliance in 2024 comes a day after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said at an event that he was waiting for the Congress’s approval for an opposition unity. “I am ready. I am waiting for the Congress’s signal,” Kumar said at an event of CPM(L), his alliance partner.
Kumar, who rejoined the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress-Left alliance in August last year, leaving his earlier partner BJP in Bihar, also claimed that “if the opposition unites, the BJP will not cross 100 seats.” Congress leader Salman Khurshid, who attended the event, later quipped that “sometimes inexperienced lovers are uninhibited enough to say ‘I love you’ first.”
“The Congress has already taken an initiative. During the Bharat Jodo Yatra, we invited maximum like-minded political parties to join and to have a common fight against the BJP government,” Venugopal said at a media briefing in the national capital. “We are very glad to say that most of the political like-minded parties joined it.”
“Therefore, there is a clear-cut initiative from the Congress party. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called a series of meetings of like-minded opposition parties during the Parliament session,” he said. “Outside Parliament also, we are ready to have…, we have already welcomed the statement of Nitish Kumar Ji. Certainly Congress will play its role in a bigger manner. Plenary will be a platform for all of these things.”
While the Congress reiterated its commitment to not compromise on its main job—to reduce the BJP’s electoral strength—party leader Jairam Ramesh stepped up the attack on some parties and said: “Congress is the only political party which has never made an agreement with the BJP. There are many opposition parties who sit in Kharge ji’s meeting but their action is in favour of the ruling party. We don’t have two faces in relation to the BJP; we have only one face — we are in opposition to the BJP.”
“We want JPC (joint parliamentary committee) to be formed on the Adani case. Many parties supported us and many parties did not accept the demand of JPC and said they wanted a Supreme Court inquiry, which was a political step to save the Prime Minister,” Ramesh said.
During the first half of the budget session, the Trinamool Congress was vocal about a probe into the Adani Group monitored by the apex court.
The Congress acknowledges the importance of opposition unity and “it will be discussed (at the AICC Plenary session), Venugopal said. “We know our role very well,” he said.
The Congress argued that it has a long history of handling coalitions. “We are in alliance in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura and some other states in the northeast. We are in coalition in seven states in India. The question is what will be the vision of maha gathbandhan,” said Ramesh.
Party leaders later said that pollster Prashant Kishor’s formula of a united fight with common candidates against the BJP, an idea Kishor floated during his negotiations with the Congress, was politically impossible.
“We want state-based alliances. In those states where we are already in alliance, we want the pact to continue in the next Lok Sabha polls,” a senior leader said, seeking anonymity.