No opposition common minimum programme, only broad agreement now: Derek O’Brien

Efforts at a common minimum programme, discussed at a meeting in Sharad Pawar's house, seems to be losing steam since the 14 February Pulwama attack.

File photo | Opposition leaders share the stage in Karnataka at H.D. Kumaraswamy's swearing-in, 2018 | @INCIndia/Twitter

New Delhi: Opposition parties attempting to forge a pre-poll alliance are no longer keen on drafting a common minimum programme (CMP), ThePrint has learnt.

Sources told ThePrint that the efforts to come up with a CMP have been put on the back-burner. This was also reiterated by the Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Derek’ O Brien, who said the opposition will now focus on those issues where there is broad agreement.

“We are not going to call it the CMP,” he said Friday at the launch of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s new book India in Distress in New Delhi.

The opposition had initially pushed for a CMP. On 13 February, following a late-night meeting of opposition leaders at Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar’s house in Delhi, Banerjee had told reporters that Congress president Rahul Gandhi had been given the responsibility of drafting the CMP.

The efforts appear to be losing steam now.

Development comes amid murmurs of opposition disunity

The development comes amid murmurs that all is not well with opposition unity after the Congress recently announced that it will not ally with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

In West Bengal, the state Congress unit is opposed to an alliance with the Trinamool Congress even though its central leadership is in favour of it.

Even in Bihar, the grand alliance between the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and the smaller parties are not on the same page with regard to seat sharing.

Asked if the pre-poll alliance that opposition parties are trying to stitch together has lost steam since the Pulwama terror attack, O’Brien said the perception is not correct.

“The reality is that all opposition parties are having extremely good coordination. Having physical meetings in Delhi is not the only parameter to gauge coordination,” he said.

O’Brien added that despite a narrative being built “by the BJP” of cracks in opposition unity, the parties are in regular touch with others both on the phone and social media.

The Trinamool leader said the BJP is doing this because it wants to push four or five things out of the conversation such as joblessness, agrarian distress, corruption and the Rafale deal.

“The BJP is doing this because it is on the defensive,” O’Brien said. “When you are in the defensive you try to create a perception that you are on the offensive.”