The opposition should be relishing this gift from the gods that has landed in its lap. But it seems to be treating it as a bit of a hot potato instead.

There’s something curious happening in Delhi.

The Narendra Modi government is battling the first real high profile favours scandal on its watch. This has potential to be a real PR blow because this is the sort of friends-in-high-places favours-trading that the public actually understands unlike coal blocks or 2G spectrum.

The Modi government has an unassailable majority in the Lok Sabha. And it will probably weather this storm as well but the opposition, hopelessly outnumbered in the Lok Sabha, has a chance to corner the government and get in some punches. Especially since the government has been on a moral high horse about its scam-free transparency. The opposition should be relishing this gift from the gods that has landed in its lap.

But it seems to be treating it as a bit of a hot potato instead.

The Sushma Swaraj affair instead of being a golden opportunity to create an opposition united front, seems to have thrown them into utter disarray. It’s the BJP who until now have formed a protective phalanx around Swaraj. The opposition seems to be speaking in many voices sometimes within the same party.

Take Trinamool Congress for instance. Yes, the same party whose leaders called Narendra Modi many colourful names like donkey, butcher and Haridas Pal. Saugata Roy, one of the veteran leaders of the party told a television channel that Swaraj should own up to “improper conduct”. The party spokesperson Derek O’Brien quickly shot off an email to media to explain that was Roy’s “personal” view and Roy was not an official Trinamool spokesperson. What was Trinamool’s official stance on this then?

“Derek has already cleared the party’s stand on this issue. He is our national spokesperson and no one else is authorized to speak on the matter,” said Subrata Bakshi, Trinamool’s all-India general secretary. That makes it all as clear as mud about the actual affair at hand.

Pundits see the silence of Mamata as a strategic one. After the recent bonhomie during the Dhaka visit with Modi, Mamata and the central BJP have both dialed down their aggressive rhetoric. Mamata is choosing her battles carefully. She does not want the CBI breathing down her neck and Modi has apparently figured that Mamata’s support in the Rajya Sabha for his bills is more important than the fortunes of the West Bengal unit of the BJP right now. This means the de facto opposition party is sitting this one out.

Also a Trinamool leader close to Mamata tells The Telegraph “More than anything else, Didi shares a rapport with Sushmaji and it is well-known that she attaches a lot of importance to personal ties.”

That’s where the importance of being Sushma Swaraj comes in. Sushma Swaraj seems to have more friends in the opposition ranks than in her party’s own Modi-fied higher echelons. While Rahul Gandhi is demanding that Modi sack Swaraj, his mother and Swaraj also made news once by hugging each other in parliament.

The Congress is clearly trying to use this issue to embarrass Modi not Swaraj. The person accused of breaking protocol and procedure is Sushma Swaraj. Lalit Modi asked for a favour. It was Swaraj who granted it whether out of humanitarian concerns or not. But the Congress has christened the scandal Modi-gate not Swaraj-gate.

“Nobody will take such a decision without consulting the Prime Minister,” said Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge trying to pin the blame on the PMO’s door.

The CPM’s Brinda Karat too trained her guns on the silence of the other Modi saying “It is a case of grave impropriety. It is the duty of the Prime Minister to answer.”

Her comrade-in-arms, the CPI’s D. Raja pretty much echoed her when he said “Prime Minister Narendra Modi owes an explanation to the country on impropriety committed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.”

It was well-known that Swaraj kept her distance from Modi during the Lok Sabha campaign and had the BJP not won an outright majority would probably have been a consensus candidate for a coalition PM. Much has been written already about her circumscribed role in the cabinet where Modi has pretty much become the de facto Minister for External Affairs. Rahul hammered that home when he went as far as calling Swaraj a "minor minister" who "means nothing in this government" and so it must "Mr. Modi standing behind Mr. Modi".

Swaraj's current woes actually land Modi’s opposition in a quandary. Should they join ranks to oust her and thus inadvertently strengthen Modi’s hands even further by clearing the way for him to appoint a tried and tested loyalist to her post? Swaraj was never seen as part of Modi’s inner circle. The opposition hardly wants to do the dirty work of getting her out of his way.

The Aam Aadmi Party, the self-professed standard-bearer for transparency and clean politics has also been watching its words. Ashutosh sounds unequivocal when he says “This is a serious matter. She should resign. If she doesn’t then PM Modi should sack her.” But even he tried to give the matter a bit of night of the long knives spin when he tweeted “There could be internal conspiracy to target S Swaraj, as there is intense competition among top leaders of BJP.”

While the silence of some opposition stalwarts is deafening, Swaraj has found more overt support from others in the opposition. Ram Gopal Yadav of the Samajwadi Party has said her help for Lalit Modi was “perfectly alright” because “political people have to help people in such situations.” That’s in direct contrast to his Janata Parivar colleague Sharad Yadav of JDU who called for Swaraj to quit.

“Sushma Swaraj should not be pestered on this issue,” said RJD’s Lalu Prasad who admittedly would be fodder for ridicule if he got too much on a moral high horse in these matters.

And while Digvijaya Singh is leading the Congress charge and declaiming “The external affairs minister is supporting a person who is on the run”, he is also quick to tweet “I have greatest regard for Sushma-ji” and wants to “appeal to her conscience.” To make matters even murkier, his own brother Laxman Singh who lost to Swaraj in last year’s general election has said she did “nothing wrong”. “People should have a large heart and a broader perspective,” said Singh who lost his own wife to cancer.

In short, Sushma's greatest advantage going forward is not just that her party is standing by her but that the opposition seems to at cross purposes with itself.

While some of this is indeed about Sushma Swaraj’s personal rapport across the aisle with various leaders, others are nervous that the unpredictable Lalit Modi firebombs can singe them as well. As is clear with his stinger about Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Modi does not believe in any permanent friends or enemies. And is happy to try and damn Vasundhara Raje by saying she accompanied his wife for cancer treatment when he could not. When it comes to Lalit Modi, no good deed goes unpunished.

Surely other Modi-friends and ex-friends like Sharad Pawar and Rajiv Shukla must be wondering if they are next in line. While the Congress bandies around old pictures of Lalit Modi with Narendra Modi, the Lalit Modi album boasts many other shots with many other luminaries across the political spectrum. No wonder they are all biting their tongues. In his tweet before his big interview with Rajdeep Sardesai, Lalit Modi said “This story will turn on its head I can assure you all right now. Let’s wait and watch who was on the right and who was in the wrong.” He followed it with the emojis of five bombs.

No one knows which bomb has their name written on it.