The Modi government’s attempts to isolate the Congress on the issue of AgustaWestland chopper deal is unlikelly to succeed as the main Opposition is occupying the anti-BJP space while regional parties facing electoral threat from the saffron party, may not back the Centre in this campaign.
The AgustaWestland issue which has targetted the “first family” of the Congress rather than the grand-old party, may not become the Bofors II becuase that time the Congress was in power with a brute majority. And now, it is in the Opposition with less than 50 members in the Lok Sabha, sources said.
Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on the campaign of “Congress-mukt Bharat”, the grand-old party cannot become irrelevant politically for the simple reason that it has been consistent in its opposition to the BJP and the RSS and thus becomes the nucleus of anti BJP parties at the national level.
While the Congress, Left and the JD(U) could remain intact against the Modi government inside and outside Parliament, the SP, the BSP, the BJD and the TMC will continue to take line convenient to their state specific politics. The BJP can become frinedly to them so long as it does not pose any threat to them in UP, Orissa and West Bengal. Besides, it has to rely on Dravadian parties in Tamil Nadu and the PDP or the NC in Kashmir.
Political leaders are assessing whether the Centre and the BJP can keep this issue alive till 2019 general election and how will it pass bills in the Rajya Sabha after targetting the Congress chief.
The ruling party has decided to take on the Gandhi-Nehru family from the front at a time when Patels are shifting from the BJP in Gujarat, the ally Shiv Sena has been uncomfortable with it in Maharashtra.
Interestingly, two top ministers on Wednesday held parleys with senior opposition leaders leaders in a bid to broker peace after the ruckus in the Rajya Sabha over BJP leader Mr Subramanian Swamy dragging Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s name in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley and parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu held confabulations with Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mr Anand Sharma,CPI(M) ldader Sitaram Yechury .
