To that, let’s ask what about the ‘non-Congress opposition’, what are opposition parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Samajwadi Party and Mamata’s Trinamool and Lalu Yadav’s RJD doing, aren’t they taking this as an opportunity to pile ire and more on the BJP, the common enemy, the big bad wolf doing the ‘salami-slicing’ of opposition parties a la the Chinese PLA at the LAC?

Shouldn’t the rest of the opposition (in the big bad world lorded over by the BJP the Congress is also a party of the combined opposition) be bothered that the BJP provides a roost and a platform to the likes of Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot, the so-called Young Turks, of which there is always one or two in every political party? Doesn’t the BJP give gumption and gall to “defectors” to spit at and spite the face of the parent party, jump fence and drop anchor in the ever widening sea that is the Bharatiya Janata Party?

Or, is it that parties such as the BSP and the SP do not mind seeing the Congress slip into the mire? Those few heady days of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ are a thing of the past and none of the non-Congress opposition parties has forgotten that if any one party benefited from the “ganging up” of opposition parties against the BJP, even if only for a symbolic while, it was the Congress, and the Congress alone.

And post the Mahagathbandhan fiasco, it was the Congress which wrested assemblies in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. To add salt to injury, there was no payoff from opposition unity, that semblance of unity, in the 2019 general elections. Narendra Modi returned to power with a thumping majority.

Coming to what’s happening to the Congress in Rajasthan these days, after what happened in Madhya Pradesh, it seems the non-Congress opposition parties battling the BJP for survival are waiting and watching events unfold, see what happens to the Congress state government, what happens to Ashok Gehlot and what happens to Sachin Pilot. BSP chief Mayawati has asked for President’s rule in the state but then she’s still not gotten over the poaching that the Congress did of all the BSP MLAs after the last assembly elections. Mayawati has accused Gehlot of bucking the anti-defection law and playing dirty with Sachin Pilot.

The BSP’s Uttar Pradesh rival, the Samajwadi Party, is meanwhile another non-Congress opposition party which is doing the wait-and-watch routine with singular focus. Former SP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav recently added another birthday to his sum total so far, and Sachin Pilot tweeted him birthday wishes. But while thanking Pilot, Yadav did not return the ‘best wishes’ favour in equal measure for Pilot’s Rajasthan endeavour.

The tidings from the ‘east’ are also rather miserly, and reticent in the coming. West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress head Mamata Banerjee is keeping her considered opinion on the Rajasthan happenings tied to her sari-pallu. With the West Bengal Assembly Elections just round another corner, ‘Didi’ doesn’t want attention divided. Besides, for her the Congress is as much election-rival as are the BJP and the Left Front.

If at all, Sachin Pilot’s actions grab Mamata in a major manner, it’s to remind her of when she dumped the Congress and floated the Trinamool Congress! Isn’t Sachin Pilot following in Mamata’s footsteps, doing a ‘Mamata’ on the Congress? In fact, Sachin Pilot is just one among a long string of Congressmen who broke away from the Congress for personal aggrandizement at one time or the other in their political careers.

The names include Sonia loyalists AK Antony and P Chidambaram, and Rajiv Gandhi’s friend and Jyotiraditya Scindia’s father Madhavrao Scindia. Who can forget Sharad Pawar and former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno Agitok Sangma, and other stalwarts from the Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru era? Come to think of it, many leading politicians ensconced in current non-Congress opposition parties are those who “ditched” the Congress and hiked their wagons to greener pastures.

That being said, the issue is not about the Congress or the BJP, or any of the non-Congress opposition parties, the issue is about electoral politics, people’s mandate, and the anti-defection law. The BJP may today benefit from a Scindia or a Pilot doing a Mamata or a Madhavrao Scindia, but the day will come when it will be on the other side of the fence, where power will not be hitched, and that’s when it will realize the pitfalls of a Pilot flying away to the rival's aerodrome.

Last but not least, the secular and socialist space that the Congress hogs is large enough to accommodate quite a few breakaway factions – like Jagan Reddy’s YSRCP, Mamata’s TCM and Sharad Pawar’s NCP. These are breakaway Congress leaders who left the Congress umbrella, and the 'protection' of the Gandhi-Nehru family, to do well in the bargain. More breakaway Congress leaders going great guns outside the Congress fold will probably be the only way in which to ensure that the BJP doesn’t become the overarching oak or the banyan tree it’s threatening to grow into. The non-Congress opposition parties can only wait and watch what happens to Pilot, as they did when Scindia left and before that when Jagan ditched and Mamata dumped. (IPA Service)