Union Minister of Home Amit Shah has already served a veiled threat to opposition leaders on July 11, after the Supreme Court of India declared the extension to Enforcement Directorate (ED) Chief’s term of extension illegal, by saying who is ED director is not important, action on corruption of cozy club of entitled dynasts will continue.

The threat is significant on account of track record of the PM Narendra Modi government that is known to intimidate opposition leaders with action in corruption cases into submission. After they split or join BJP, no action is initiated against them. Such turncoats are then given important posts in the BJP or even made ministers, such as leader of opposition in West Bengal Suvendu Adhikari, chief minister of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma, or the deputy chief minister in Maharashtra Ajit Pawar. Many opposition leaders who refuse to fall in line are languishing in jails of facing ED and CBI cases. It was submitted in the Supreme Court of India in March 2023 that 95 per cent of political leaders investigated by CBI and ED are opposition leaders.

BJP’s enhanced activities in this regard is seen in Maharashtra recently after the opposition meet in Patna last month. NCP has been broken into two and it leader Ajit Pawar was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister of the state on July 2. It has been widely reported that it was the result of recent political development in NCP which left him disgruntled, resulting in him joining the BJP-Shiv Sena (Shinde) government. Shinde himself was made chief minister after a spilt in Shiv Sena with the help of BJP, who is now facing disqualification case to be decided by a favourable speaker of the Vidhan Sabha.

What is not widely reported is that Ajit Pawar has been in contact with the BJP for quite some time and putting pressure within NCP that they should join the BJP-Shinde government in Maharashtra after leaving Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) opposition alliance in which both the NCP and Shiv Sena (UBT) are partners.

Whatever be the real reason behind effecting split in NCP by Ajit Pawar, one thing is well known that he was under the scanner of the ED in a money laundering case involving his family members. ED has alleged that illegal money was diverted in several Benami properties many of them were even attached earlier.

Another leader deserting the NCP led by Sharad Pawar is Praful Patel, who had participated in June 23 Patna opposition meet and now he claims the opposition unity efforts are ridiculous and laughable. He is also with Ajit Pawar. However, it should be noted that Praful Patel in being investigated by the ED in a money laundering case, and several of properties allegedly linked to him have earlier been attached by ED.

Though NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar has also been under ED scanner in certain money laundering case, he has been working for grand opposition alliance ahead of Lok Sabha election 2024 to take on PM Modi and his party. It has probably irked the Modi-Shah duo who are said to be behind split in the NCP.

The veiled threat of Amit Shah against opposition leaders of action in corruption cases is significant since the BJP has been reported of trying split in JD(U) in Bihar to clip the wings of Nitish Kumar who has called for opposition meet in Patna. Reports suggest the BJP is trying to split the TMC in West Bengal also since Mamata Banerjee is also part of the grand opposition alliance. It should also be noted that there are ED cases even against several other opposition leaders such as Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, P. Chidambaram, and Karti Chidambaram of Congress; Sanjay Raut, Thackeray Family (Uddhav Thackeray), and Anil Parab of Shiv Sena (UBT); Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh of NCP; Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and Satyendra Jain of AAP; Abhishek Banerjee, Partha Chatterjee, and Anubrata Mondal of TMC; Senthil Balaji of DMK; Tejashwi Yadav and Lalu Yadav family of RJD; and Akhilesh Yadav and Azam Khan of SP etc.

On the other hand, the opposition leaders have augmented their efforts of unity in an unprecedented way even under such intimidation by the ruling establishment under Modi-Shah duo. The second meeting of the opposition political parties are scheduled to be held in Bengaluru on July 17-18. Sonia Gandhi has been reaching out to 24 opposition parties by hosting a dinner on July 17, where IUML and AAP are also invited. AAP is angry with Congress over Delhi Ordinance issue, but he is still being invited to attend the second meet, which the party is most likely to attend.

The number of opposition parties likely to participate in the second meet has been increased to 24 from 17 that participated in the first meet in Patna. The new seven parties include "Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Kongu Desa Makkal Katchi (KDMK), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), All India Forward Bloc, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Kerala Congress (Joseph), and Kerala Congress (Mani). It should be noted here that KDMK and MDMK were previously allies of the BJP in 2014.

The 17 parties agreed to fight BJP unitedly in the first opposition meet in Patna included Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Shiv Sena (UBT), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Samajwadi Party (SP), National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), CPI, CPM, CPI (ML), Janata Dal (United) JD(U), and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). (IPA Service)