BJP roasts headless chicken Opposition

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By Manish Anand

New Delhi, July 21: On a day the NDA nominee in the President’s election Droupadi Murmu romped home with over 70 per cent vote share, the Opposition threw its towel in the Vice President’s poll after the Trinamool Congress decided to watch the proceedings from the sidelines.

Droupadi Murmu improved the BJP’s domination in the electoral college of the President’s election, going past her predecessor Ram Nath Kovind’s 65 per cent vote share performance.

The joint nominee of the Opposition Yashwant Sinha cut a sorry figure in the President’s election. He was floored with the BJP’s tribal card in the poll, while the saffron outfit took the Opposition on the surgery table to run its scissor at will.

The larger curiosity on the day of the announcement of the President’s election was focused on the insatiable hunger of the mainstream media to search of Opposition unity. That remains mirage, while being an entertaining political spectacle to keep the hope alive in some sections that there could be scope for some serious challenge to the BJP’s bid for hat-trick in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Yashwant Sinha was a member of the TMC when the Opposition picked him up as its joint nominee in the President’s election.

Margret Alva had spent most of her active political career in the Congress. She was among those Governors who were allowed to cover their full terms when the BJP formed its government at the Centre in 2014. Alva was the Governor of Rajasthan.

Now, the TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who is also a Lok Sabha MP, said on Thursday that his party has decided to abstain from the Vice President’s elections. The reason cited by him stated that the TMC wasn’t kept in the loop, while Alva was picked up as the joint candidate in a meeting of all the opposition parties, which was missed by the ruling outfit in West Bengal.

Evidently, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as has been her wont for years, doesn’t want to be seen supporting a Congress person in any election.

The TMC cannot back a Congress candidate is the overall interpretation of the political observers over the decision of the party to stay away from the Vice President’s election.

Except DMK, the Nationalist Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, no other opposition party wants to have any truck with the Congress.

The TMC, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, YSR Congress, the Biju Janata Dal, Janata Dal (Secular), the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and even smaller outfits with insignificant footprints want to stay away from the Congress.

Yet, they drum up their claims that there will be a formidable alternative against the BJP in the next elections.

This leaves just one conclusion that the regional outfits are quite happy holding on to their turfs, and they want the Congress to remain in the political ICU, for the revival of the grand old party would directly pose existential threat to them.