Apropos the news item titled ‘Mamata calls out to Cong, GFP, NCP to join alliance” (The Goan Everyday, December 14, 2021), it appears that two things are happening simultaneously. In Goa, Mamata Didi is trying to woo “like-minded parties” to join the alliance.
While Mamata was attending the impressive meeting at Dando grounds in Benaulim, the national media was abuzz with the photographs of PM Narendra Modi taking a holy dip in the Ganges on the occasion of the launch of Kashi Vishwanath Corridor Project. Chants of “Har Har Mahadev” were ubiquitous.
When one man from the ruling BJP has single-handedly demolished the opposition parties with his brute majority and phenomenal personal popularity, what hopes can Didi have to defeat BJP outside of West Bengal?
In 2021-22, the political jargon such as “like-minded parties”, “alliance of secular forces”, “third front” and “defeat of communal forces” have lost their true meanings. The BJP leaders brand all these anti-BJP forces as “anti-nationals”. That is enough to take the wind out the sails of these garden variety political marriages of convenience ahead of elections.
Mamata Didi should think out of the box and prepare a strategy that can pose a real threat to the all-powerful BJP. These tokenisms are now past their sell-by-dates.
