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@Evening: 🤷 So, What Came Out Of The Patna Opposition Meet?

Karan KambleJun 23, 2023, 09:11 PM | Updated Jun 24, 2023, 10:36 AM IST
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Opposition leaders at the Patna conclave

Precious little was achieved yesterday at the meeting of 16 opposition parties in Patna, Bihar.

Context: Apart from reiterating the need for opposition unity, nothing concrete came out of the four-hour-long meeting that kicked off at the official residence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

  • The only real ‘agreement’ at the meeting was to meet again in Shimla on 10 July under the chairmanship of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.

  • The underlying message from the opposition parties? If they don't forge a united front, the opposition will not be able to stop the BJP from returning to power next year.

  • Kharge and Rahul Gandhi contended that their party’s recent win in Karnataka showed that the BJP is not invincible.

  • Not united? Notably, a strong divergence of opinion on chalking out a common agenda surfaced during the meeting.

    • While some parties are in favour of it, others say that a common agenda, or a common minimum programme, can always be chalked out after the 2024 election if the need arises.   

  • Some parties are worried they will be viewed by voters as part of an ‘opportunistic alliance’, in the absence of a common minimum programme.

  • Others say fighting elections unitedly on the basis of seat-sharing deals should be the foremost task before the election.

  • The fragility of opposition unity was driven home when Arvind Kejriwal took on the Congress for not extending their support to AAP over the Centre’s ordinance on Delhi civil services.

  • Kejriwal declared that he would not attend the Shimla meet and absented himself from the joint presser addressed by the opposition leaders after their meeting.

  • The Congress will overassert? Leaders of some regional parties obliquely hinted at the meeting that the Congress would have to shoulder a major part of the responsibility for forging opposition unity.


  • This was a broad hint for the Congress leadership that they should respect the turf of regional parties and not lay claim to seats in states where regional parties are strong.

  • But the Congress will not concede much ground to regional parties. 

  • They have already said they plan to field candidates for about 450 Lok Sabha seats, thus leaving the remaining 93 to other parties. 

  • And this is where the opposition’s bid to forge unity will come unstuck.

  • There were several other sore points among the parties. Read Jaideep Mazumdar's original story to know the whole story.

  • What next? The Congress has offered to host the next meeting in Shimla next month.

    • All parties agreed to it, as well as to the Congress’ suggestion that it should be a two-day affair where substantive issues can be discussed. 

  • Nitish Kumar told Kharge that a firm agenda should be drawn up for the Shimla meeting.

  • He said that the next meeting should discuss the seat sharing formula conceived by the JD(U)-RJD combine (read this). 

  • Congress leaders admitted in private that the seat-sharing formula needs elaborate discussions and will need major tweaking to address the concerns of all the parties.

  • Bottom line: Predictably, there are too many differences between the opposition parties, which makes it tough to achieve any sense of unity. 

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