04:22Rahul, Sonia attend Kumaraswamy's swearing in ceremony; Mamata, Akhilesh, Mayawati also present

01:45Congress forms govt with JD(S) in Karnataka: Will imperfect past prevent a better future for the alliance?

BENGALURU: The idea of a grand anti-BJP coalition emerging before next year’s Lok Sabha polls appeared to be on a firmer footing on Wednesday when almost all the non-BJP parties came together here to celebrate the inauguration of the JD(S)-Congress coalition government , raising the prospect of a mouth-watering ‘Modi versus Rest’ contest in 2019.Barring Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, who decided to stay away, and his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekhar Rao who had visited H D Kumaraswamy and his father H D Deve Gowda on Tuesday, leaders of most non-BJP parties were present to mark the launch of a regime hastily forged to stop the saffron party from wresting control of Karnataka.The oath-taking ceremony of CM Kumaraswamy and his deputy, Congress ’ G Parmeshwara, on the lawns of the imposing Vidhan Soudha marked the first time that the entire phalanx of outfits had come together on one platform. Most of them have little in common but for an intense and still-growing desire to stop Prime Minister Modi from getting a second term. The parallel with the Kumbh, when people of different persuasions and divergent sects come together, was obvious and irresistible. The difference was that those present on the big dais were motivated by clear-eyed political calculations rather than hope of any spiritual salvation.This was the biggest gathering of anti-BJP forces since 1996 when the first such grouping emerged as the single largest group in Lok Sabha.The context itself was the biggest give-away. BJP may have fallen tantalizingly short of a clearly majority, but its performance defied the estimates of Congress, JD(S) and other opponents. The strong saffron showing underlined that Modi’s pull remains strong, and that Amit Shah has turned BJP into an electoral machine which can encash this asset even on terrains that are not too friendly.The resultant anxiety caused a chastened Congress to rush to pledge support to Kumaraswamy and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to share the same dais with CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Kerala’s Marxist chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who had played the sheet-anchor of unity efforts when faced with a similar challenge of saffron ascendancy in 2004, seemed ready to perform the same role. The former Congress boss, who lost no time in calling up JD(S) patriarch, former PM H D Deve Gowda, to offer Congress’s support to the latter’s son, warmly reached out to others, engaging Lalu Prasad’s son and successor-designate, former deputy CM of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav, in a lively conversation and showed conviviality towards others.But it was her geniality towards BSP Mayawati that was most striking, with the BSP boss fully reciprocating. In the post-event photo-op, Sonia was the pivotal figure, once again paying special attention to the Dalit czarina. She asked RLD leader Ajit Singh to step aside to make way for Mayawati to come in the front.The Congress chief was also quick to take Mayawati’s hand to raise it high while asking Sharad Pawar to do the same.In contrast, Rahul seemed subdued: something attributed to the disappointment over the party’s defeat and the possible awkwardness in being friendly with opposition grandees decades senior to him.Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati looked comfortable, while the presence of Ajit Singh along with the two UP satraps pointed to the challenge that BJP faces in next week’s by-poll for Kairana Lok Sabha constituency in west UP.But the camaraderie could not conceal possible wrinkles, with many feeling Mamata Banerjee’s distance from the Gandhis could not have been just a coincidence. Mamata, along with Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao, has mooted a “Federal Front” -- a grouping of non-Congress and non-BJP parties — the project signalling the reluctance of regional chieftains to acquiesce in a diminished Congress’s claim to be the natural leader of an anti-BJP front.The “grand alliance” or Mahagathbandhan project has followed a chequered trajectory since it was successfully implemented in Bihar in 2015. SP and BSP did not warm up to the idea in 2017. However, the rout that year led them to successfully join forces for Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls in UP earlier this year.Cobbling an alliance by bringing together outfits which have few things in common may not be that easy. Reconciling competing ambitions and conflicting perspectives will be a challenge, while not all the parties will be able to transfer their votes en mass to their partners. However, the Bengaluru show showed that the challenge will not deter the opposition from making the attempt.