The trust deficit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Opposition seems unbridgeable. The olive branch extended by the PM after the traditional all-party meeting on June 16 was coldly rebuffed, with key Opposition leaders skipping the PM's think-fest on his pet project, 'One Nation, One Election’.
The Opposition may be suffering from a political version of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after being ruthlessly schooled by the electorate in Lok Sabha 2019. It has yet to organise itself into a coherent force in and outside Parliament, much less to come up with a joint strategy.
The PM's big-hearted, statesman-like assurance to the Opposition that its lack of numbers will not prevent it from being heard -- “every word you speak is valuable to us” -- did not have the desired effect. The key opposition players -- Congress, Samajwadi Party, BSP, TMC and DMK -- chose to skip the meeting, conscious that they were not in a position to speak unanimously and forcefully.
But the main reason for the persistent froideur between the Treasury and Opposition benches is the latter's abiding distrust of PM Modi. Party leaders do not buy into his conciliatory spiel, which they feel is purely for public consumption. The elephant in the room is the fear that the government will systematically set about unearthing skeletons from closets.
The traditional power structure offered a certain sense of security. In or out of power, politicians across parties co-existed in a bonhomous partnership based on a 'you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours' understanding.
However acrimonious public debates were, behind-the-scenes compromises were made and deals were struck. Membership of the power structure offered scope for negotiated settlement and protection, at a personal level. For the first time ever, that 'suraksha kavachh' is missing.
The BJP's near-hegemonistic control of Parliament and government and distaste for the Lutyens’ Delhi consensus implies that the Opposition feels left out. The distribution of power, from their perspective, has left them emasculated.
The PM's observation that “a strong and active Opposition is an inevitable condition of democracy” is bang-on. If he's serious, then he has to find a way to allay fears and infuse a sense of inclusiveness among Opposition leaders.
The Opposition, for its part, must jettison the assumption that the 17th Lok Sabha will proceed along business-as-usual lines. The old power structure is on its way out and they must adapt to the new one, which will have a different set of rules, a radically different intellectual basis and a whole new cohort of players.
The free-wheeling regional parties, notably the YSR Congress, Biju Janata Dal and TRS, are more inclined to cooperate with the NDA government, while holding it to account when their respective regional concerns are affected. All three parties emerged as winners in Lok Sabha 2019 and can therefore base their interactions with the Centre on a spirit of cooperative federalism.
Those who lost to the BJP, more specifically the Congress (and its loyal ally the DMK), the TMC, AAP, BSP and SP, labour under a sense of mistrust and insecurity. To be fair, the AAP has good reason to be wary, having gotten the sharp end of the stick during the NDA's first term!
The Congress is in a shambles, with its president Rahul Gandhi, having withdrawn himself to the point that he skipped the party's strategy session earlier this week (it was Rajya Sabha opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad who attended Sunday's all-party meeting with the PM).
As the party with the largest number of MPs after the BJP -- albeit with a gap of 250 seats between the two -- the Congress needs to settle its internal differences and pull itself and the UPA together.
If the Opposition is to do its job, the various parties must set aside their differences and set up an efficient mechanism for cooperation, capable of minute-by-minute consultation and planning.
Skipping the all-party meeting was just the kind of avoidable knee-jerk reaction it cannot afford. Given its reduced numbers, the Opposition parties must evolve and execute strategies collectively if they are to be an effective force on the floor of the House.
Enough time has lapsed since the results were announced to get over the sting of defeat and look to the future. By refusing to engage with the ruling coalition, the Opposition will only end up hurting itself and defaulting on its constitutionally-mandated role.
(The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal)
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