The decision to pick Mr Gandhi for the post was announced after a meeting of the INDIA bloc.

New Delhi:

Taking the fight to the ruling BJP-led NDA, Rahul Gandhi has accepted a decision by the Congress Working Committee and will take up the mantle of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. 

Tuesday’s announcement comes hours before the first big battle of the 18th Lok Sabha, between a resurgent opposition and a diminished ruling coalition, over the post of Speaker. 

Denied an assurance that an opposition member would be given the post of Deputy Speaker, as is the tradition, the Congress and the INDIA bloc decided to force an election for the post of Speaker at the last minute by putting up K Suresh as its candidate against the BJP’s pick, Om Birla, who was the Speaker in the previous Lok Sabha.

While Wednesday’s election – the first for the Speaker’s post in decades – is likely to be only a symbolic one since it requires a simple majority of 272 MPs and the NDA, which has 293 on its own, has also got the support of the YSR Congress’ 4 MPs, it is about the opposition signalling that things in Parliament will not remain as they were in 2014 and 2019. 

The move to make Rahul Gandhi, who is arguably the Congress’ most popular face, the Leader of the Opposition is also being seen as a step in that direction because this is the first time since 2014 that any opposition party has managed to cross the figure of 54 (10% of the Lok Sabha’s strength) needed to stake claim to the post. Besides getting a cabinet rank, the Leader of the Opposition post will enable Mr Gandhi to strongly take up the issues of the people and the INDIA bloc at a time when the opposition parties are at their strongest in a decade. 

These are expected to include the alleged paper leaks in various examinations, including NEET-UG, which has seen major protests in several parts of the country and the Agnipath scheme for recruitment in the Army, which had emerged as a major election issue.

As the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Gandhi will be part of key panels – like those to select Election Commissioners and the CBI director – along with the Prime Minister. The constitutional post will also give him an opportunity to call on visiting heads of state to give his perspective on national issues.

The decision to pick Mr Gandhi for the post was announced after a meeting of floor leaders of the INDIA bloc at Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence on Tuesday night. 

“Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson (Sonia Gandhi) wrote a letter to Pro-Tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab, informing him of the decision to appoint Rahul Gandhi as the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Other office bearers will be decided later,” senior party leader KC Venugopal said.

Sources said, however, that despite the timing of the announcement, the Congress’ allies were not informed of the decision at the INDIA meeting. 

CWC Resolution

At a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, on June 8 – four days after the Lok Sabha election results were announced – a resolution was passed stating that Rahul Gandhi should be appointed the Leader of the Opposition.

Commending his role in the Lok Sabha elections, the resolution also said,  “Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi has to be singled out largely because of the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra that he designed and led. Both these Yatras that reflected his thinking and personality were historic turning points in our nation’s politics and instilled hope and confidence in lakhs of our workers and crores of our voters.”

Mr Gandhi was reportedly reluctant to take up the post but, sources said, he gave in to the party’s demands and was also prodded to do so by his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi. 

He had also been warned, in jest, by Congress President Kharge that disciplinary action would be taken against him if he did not abide by the Congress Working Committee’s decision. This was confirmed by Mr Gandhi himself when, while the party was announcing that he would be giving up the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat and Priyanka Gandhi would contest from there, he had said that “a threat has been made”.

Big Step Up?

This will be Rahul Gandhi’s first constitutional post despite having been in Parliament since 2004. Reports had said that he was being pushed to take up a Cabinet berth between 2004 and 2014, when the UPA was in power under then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but he had declined.

Mr Gandhi became the Congress president in 2017 and resigned after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, taking moral responsibility for the party’s poor show. The Congress had managed to win just 52 seats – up from 44 in 2014 – while the BJP had clinched 303.

For a large part of his career, Mr Gandhi has been seen as a not-so-serious politician, especially in contrast to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image of a 24X7 worker and campaigner. But the public perception of the Congress leader began to change after the 4,000-km Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022-23 and the 6,000-km Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra earlier this year.

This was reflected not just in the Congress’s vastly improved tally of 99 seats in the just-concluded polls but also in Mr Gandhi winning both the Rae Bareli and Wayanad Lok Sabha constituencies with margins of over 3.5 lakh votes.

The INDIA alliance, which has the Samajwadi Party, the Trinamool Congress and the DMK as the other major constituents in terms of strength in the Lok Sabha, managed to win 232 seats against the BJP’s 240 and the NDA’s 293.

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