Dharmendra Jore: United colours of opposition

Congress and NCP leaders march together in the 'Sangharsh Yatra' in Nagpur on Thursday. Pic/PTI

There were days when former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and his deputy Ajit Pawar were not on talking terms, such was the acrimony over Chavan's bulldozing of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the then ruling partner of the Congress. But both the Congresses bit the dust in the Modi wave in 2014, and then went their own ways, with less than 45 Assembly seats each, in a state legislature headed by the BJP's Devendra Fadnavis.

The two leaders have now realized that the BJP wouldn't have won so many seats had their respective parties put up a united front in the 2014 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Such introspection and hindsight is hard to digest, but looking at the current political situation, one should appreciate the unity that the opposition is trying to show to the masses across the state.

The Congress and NCP, along with smaller constituents in the opposition, set out on a Sangharsh Yatra (struggle march) last week, primarily to tell the people that the BJP government is insensitive to indebted and distressed farmers. Chavan and Pawar have not only shared the dais, but also their views. Seniors leaders from both parties are travelling together in a bus, eating simple food with farmers and workers, making fiery speeches in which they ask the BJP to step down so that they can give farmers some much-needed relief. The leaders have claimed encouraging response to their movement through the heat and dust in the state's hinterlands, where the epidemic of farmer suicide continues.

What triggered the idea of the yatra was the BJP's move to suspend 19 Congress and NCP legislators who were indicted for shaming the Assembly with their unruly behaviour during the budget speech. The MLAs were demanding a loan waiver for farmers, which the BJP has decided to offer, but not the way the opposition wants. The government wants sustainable development of agriculture sector, which a one-time loan waiver cannot accomplish. The opposition wants a UPA-like mega relief, in which some Rs 70,000 crore was spent on servicing farm loans across the country a decade ago. The Congress and NCP say they have expertise in this matter, and they rue the fact that the people did not vote for them.

However, the BJP remains smarter than the opposition. It lifted the suspension of the 9 MLAs on Saturday to ensure that Congress-NCP continue to boycott the last week of the budget session. The BJP did try to score over its rivals by calling the yatra a sham and a sojourn undertaken in air-conditioned buses and luxury cars when the farmers are braving soaring mercury levels.

Allegations and counter-allegations will go on, but what is noticeable is that the BJP, too, is facing the heat for the first time since this government's first legislative session in December 2014. The Upper House did not work for a record time. More than three weeks were wasted without transacting any business. Like the Rajya Sabha, Maharashtra's Upper House, too, is dominated by the opposition, which held the fort when their Assembly colleagues boycotted the house. But in the lower house, the BJP pushed hard with its majority, leaving the Congress-NCP high and dry.

Time will tell what benefits the Congress and NCP will get in exchange for supporting the farmers' cause. To negate the opposition effect, the BJP is expected to come out with an SOP in the election year. That should leave one of the four main players - the Shiv Sena - nowhere. The Sena did participate in an agitation, but backed out after reaching a compromise with the BJP. The party leadership did not reach out to farmers in the recent zilla parishad polls, and instead focused only in Mumbai and Thane civic elections.

Sena's flip-flop policy not only puts the BJP in advantage but it also adds to the Congress-NCP's tally of brawny points. Despite the fact that a majority of Sena's legislators hail from rural areas, this advantage gets overshadowed time and again. That explains the mounting frustration among the Sena MLAs.

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com