The Opposition is confident of a floor coordination in Parliament after realising that the UPA constituents are feeling uncomfortable with the Congress while the supporting parties like the BSP and the Samajwadi Party will find it difficult to help the government on the floor despite being under attack by the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.
“We see the process of the UPA’s disintegration has begun but the non-UPA parties are not emerging as an alternate to the Congress-led front,” concede Opposition leaders privately.
The current mood in the Opposition is to allow the Monsoon Session of Parliament beginning August 1 to function. “This will help us more than the government whose key bills will not pass without the support of the supporting parties and the allies. We will move amendments to compel the government to accept it,” said a BJP official.
Leaders of the Opposition in the two Houses — Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr Arun Jaitley — are focused and articulate, but are not seen as “natural” Opposition leaders and thus lack qualities which Opposition leaders require.
“Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav, Kalyan Singh would have been more effective inside and outside Parliament than the current Leaders of the Opposition. The BJP requires a leader like Narendra Modi,” they feel.
The non-NDA Opposition parties cannot be effective not because they lack numbers and were defeated in the West Bengal and Kerala Assembly polls, but because they cannot exploit division in the UPA effectively unless they join hands with the rest.
The Opposition’s main target is neither the DMK nor the NCP or any UPA ally, but the Congress. Its strategy is to discredit the Congress and its ministers.
The BJP has already made Union ministers P. Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal its main target of attack.
Senior NDA leader L.K. Advani has questioned Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan’s strategy to divert the attack to the NCP ministers from him on the serial bomb blasts.
Mr Chavan had suggested that had the important ministries like home remain with the Congress, then such blasts would not have taken place.
Mr Advani on Sunday cautioned Mr Chavan and the Congress that they should not try to find “scapegoats” for the Mumbai blasts.
Referring to Mr Chavan’s comment on the NCP holding the home portfolio, Mr Advani said in his latest blog, “Let not the Congress party try to find scapegoats for the latest Mumbai outrage.
“The common man must be feeling amazed to read the Maharashtra chief minister blaming the blasts on the NCP just because the home portfolio in the state is with the party,” he said.