Who Will Be Prime Minister If The Opposition Bloc Wins?
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2023-08-14 09:16:19
About the Author
The Trinamool Congress held a social media conclave in Kolkata recently. The party called upon its digital army to spread a new slogan "bolche banglar jonota, pradhanmatri hok Mamata" (the people of Bengal are saying that Mamata Banerjee should be prime minister). The party has asked them to flood all available social media platforms with posts, videos, reels, memes and catchy graphics to garner support for the pitch. Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said Mamata Banerjee has the best credentials to be the prime minister and challenged the public to find a more experienced and able politician for the post.
This pitch goes against the stated stand of all opposition leaders in the INDIA bloc, including Mamata Banerjee, that the question of who will be Prime Minister in the event the bloc wins will be taken up at the appropriate time. It is a direct effort by the TMC to project her as the principal candidate to be the PM if the opposition manages to beat the NDA and form the next government in 2024.
With the Congress upbeat after the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the twin wins in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, it is unlikely that it is going to take this kindly. For the Congress, Rahul Gandhi is the natural choice to lead the opposition alliance and stake claim to be the prime minister if the bloc wins in 2024. There are other claimants to the post too. Thus, even if the opposition leaders publicly agree that the focus should be on winning first, there is no doubt that there is intense completion and much heart burn privately over the issue of who will lead the alliance and occupy the top post.
Ideally, the top post should be left for later. The party with the maximum number of Lok Sabha MPs should get the post. But regional parties know that with their area of influence being small, they might not be able to match a resurgent Congress in number of MPs. That is why parties like TMC and JD(U) are projecting Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar, respectively, as seasoned, experienced and able candidates for the post. This is going to be a major hurdle in the smooth functioning of the INDIA bloc.
