Barring the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, no other opposition party was represented by its tall leaders at the Iftar party hosted by Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Wednesday. Regional stalwarts such as Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav, MK Stalin and Sharad Pawar did not turn up. While most of the regional parties sent their second-rung leaders for the event, the Samajwadi Party and the National Conference went unrepresented. Just months ago nearly the entire brass of senior opposition leaders had turned up for dinner hosted by Sonia Gandhi, and weeks ago they were seen in full strength at the oath-taking ceremony of HD Kumaraswamy in Bangalore. The Rahul Gandhi-hosted Iftar was supposed to showcase opposition unity, though no Congress leader would accept that and instead maintain that the event was a social one with no politics attached. Yet, the message is clear that Rahul Gandhi is far from being acceptable as the leader of an opposition combine. It may be recalled that Mamata Banerjee, in a rebuff to the Congress, had said she had attended the Bangalore event because a JD (S)-led Government had been formed. As the 2019 election approaches, it is getting increasingly clear that the Congress under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership will have to settle for an alliance with only a few regional leaders, such as Tejaswi Yadav, Omar Abdullah and Hemant Soren. And for all the bonhomie the party has with the Left Front, it is still unclear whether the Front as a whole will align with the Congress ahead of the poll or prefer some sort of post-poll understanding. Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, while Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati are determined — as of now — to contest as allies, it is not certain whether the Congress will be part of that coalition. Media reports have it that the Bahujan Samaj Party chief is keen to drawn in the Congress but the Samajwadi Party has its reservations. The SP has already expressed its willingness to play a secondary role to the BSP in the State in a bid to contain the Bharatiya Janata Party, but if the Congress is taken into the combine, the SP could see a further compromise on the number of seats it will get to contest. Besides, neither the Congress nor Rahul Gandhi brings anything on the table for the two regional heavyweights in the State.
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