Lalu Prasad Yadav’s presence at the Patna conclave of non-BJP parties on 23 June 2023 reminded many seniors in the media box of the late Harkishen Singh Surjeet, the Marxist Communist party leader, whose political skills were crucial in the unity among parties that first ejected the incumbent  Congress leader, and then helped forge a unity which limited Atal Behari Vajpayee's Prime Ministership to 2004. 
 
Vajpayee had seemed set for another term in office but for the guile of the popular Surjeet whose deep connects with senior leaders across parties brought them on a platform of keeping the BJP and the Sangh out of power. Sonia Gandhi renounced the offer of becoming Prime Minister. Manmohan Singh, who ruled for ten years as Prime Minister because of the forging of the United Progressive Alliance, was graciously grateful in his tributes when the tall Sardar passed away in 2008.

Jayaprakash Narain had assumed leadership of the anti-corruption movement, and the political forces ranged against Indira Gandhi leading up to the declaration of the Emergency in 1975. But it were interlocutors such as Surjeet, together with fellow Marxist leaders such as Jyoti Basu, and others who had played a stellar role in the forming of the Janata Party together with Jagjivan Ram and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna. 
 
The Janata Party, however, gave respectability to the Rashtriya  Swayamsewak Sangh by keeping its leaders in the newly structured party which was supported by the CPM. 
 
It was the presence of the Sangh that led to the break-up of the Janata Party, and with it the fall of the  Morarji Desai government. The mercurial George Fernandes led the socialist revolt against the continuance of the RSS, demanding that the former Jan Sangh members make a choice between their continuance in the Janata Party and their membership of the RSS.  
 
Vajpayee, L K Advani, and their followers showed they were more loyal to the RSS than to the Janata Party. Charan Singh, who succeeded Morarji Desai, quit within six months without facing a test of his group’s majority in Parliament. Mrs Gandhi returned to power in the elections that followed. 
 
It is a moot question if Narendra Modi would have been Prime Minister if Vajpayee had won a third time in 2004.
 
Lalu Prasad, who has got a second life thanks to his younger daughter donating him her kidney in a life-saving surgery in a Singapore hospital, was quite the life and soul of the gathering of senior leaders of 17 parties from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu who gathered in historic city of Patna. He will admit he is no Surjeet, but the acceptance he had as an elder with Rahul Gandhi and others  spoke volumes  in the otherwise  cacophony of self-important regional leaders.
 
The 17 parties have decided to meet in Shimla in July, give or take an odd Aam Aadmi Party, or some new party in the North-East which may join in following the developments that have taken since the Patna conclave. The AAP’s Kejriwal has serious differences with the Congress in Punjab and Delhi, the two States his party rules.
 
The Congress president,  Mallikarjuna Kharge, and not Rahul Gandhi, will chair the meeting in the hills station. Shimla was made famous  because of the post-Bangladesh war meeting there of defeated Pakistan  leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and the Indian Prime Minister Mrs Gandhi, who was then at the height of her power and glory.
 
While others may dismiss the Patna meeting as of little consequence, their main opponent, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sees the  threat from the Group of 17, or G-17 to use the acronym so dear to him. He was in the United States when the Patna conclave took place. It was his first formal state visit to that country which had denied him visa even when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. Patna did take a little of the sheen off the Washington tour, grabbing reluctant headlines in the media at home, and some space on television news channels.
 
No wonder that  the day after he landed, instead of visiting Manipur which has seen continuous violence and tension since May 3, Modi chose to go to Bhopal where he addressed his party men in what sounded like an informal launch  of his campaign for a third term in 2024. 
 
Using the hectoring language as only he can voice, together with gesticulations with his raised finger and both arms, Modi waded into  the opposition leaders  one by one.  Naming them, he told the audience in so many words, “if you want to benefit the Gandhi children, vote for the Congress. If you want to vote for the nation, vote for the BJP.” 
 
In quick succession, he named the Yadavs of UP and Bihar, the Bannerjees of Bengal, and the Stalins of Tamil Nadu. Perhaps he forgot the names of the children of the Congress Chief Ministers of Rajasthan and Karnataka, where his party had recently been thrashed despite his personal campaign through the streets of Bangalore and other towns.
 
By most accounts, the latest effort of the political parties  opposing Modi has got off on the right foot. Several factors led to the bonhomie, the warmth and the optimism that was shown at the meeting  in the capital of Bihar, a state which in the freedom struggle and the early decades of independence has  played a role on the national scene no less important than its massive neighbour Uttar Pradesh, home to the early Prime Ministers.
 
The meeting was held almost within weeks of the massive Congress victory in Karnataka. The Congress triumph had proved several points. Modi, the sole breadwinner of the BJP, still drew crowds in his road shows, even if a large section of them had been hired from outside the places of the road shows. 
 
The people, however,  were  willing to vote on issues of development, equity and harmony, cutting across caste lines. The religious minorities, which had over  the decades drifted away from the Congress, were once again willing to trust the party. And civil society, always a critic of the Congress for its many ills displayed in its long reign in Delhi and the states, was willing to trust the party’s new leadership with certain caveats.
 
The second was the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Rahul Gandhi.  He was the weak link in the past in the Congress. Modi had trolled him with much success. The opposition too perhaps did not seem him any more than as a dilettante who was uncertain in assuming leadership even within his own party. 
 
The Yatra threw up a tough young leader who listened, and who struck an instant rapport with the common people, the young, the poor, in the long journey from the south to Kashmir. And Rahul was not pushy, and not throwing his own hat in the ring as the future Prime Minister.
 
These are organic conditions for either a pre-poll coalition on a minimum common program, and a transparent understanding between parties for a post-poll alliance after a seat adjustment that explores every chink in the BJP’s electoral armour. 
 
Bickering in major states have shown that the BJP has developed sharp faultiness in major Hindi states that could spell disaster for it. Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, not the strongest bets for the Congress in the past, suddenly look vulnerable. UP is still a fortress, but not as sound as it was in 2014 and to a lesser extent, in 2019.
 
Observers seem confident that the poll results will depend on the choice of the candidates put up by the main parties, specially the Congress. If it plays its cards wisely and modestly, and gets winnable seats in every state where it has a major opponent other than the BJP, the Congress will emerge by far the biggest  party in Parliament other than the BJP.
 
Much, as has been said, will depend on its selection of candidates and local election platform in states such as Kerala, Bengal and Telungana where the ruling parties are strong and will fight for their existence. 
 
What would be the expectations of the allies from the Congress in the negotiations for every seat it possibly can win, and to assist its partners win their seats?
 
This would be critical in Uttar Pradesh where the political geography changes with the four or five district clusters in Eastern UP, West, Awadh and the Southern districts. 
 
The most recent reports are of some rapprochement being worked out by the Congress with Mayawati and her BSP on the one hand,  and with a cluster of smaller dalit groups opposed to the BSP. Not all parties are in a position to transfer their votes to their allies in seats where they are not contesting.
 
But those are things for the future. Before Shimla, the various parties are taking stock of their own strengths and trying to list the constituencies where they have won, where they have been runners up,  and which they can forgo.
 
Patna saw the presence of Nitish Kumar (JDU), Mamata Banerjee (AITC), M.K. Stalin (DMK), Mallikarjun Kharge (INC), Rahul Gandhi (INC), Arvind Kejriwal (AAP), Hemant Soren (JMM), Uddhav Thackeray (SS-UBT), Sharad Pawar (NCP), Lalu Prasad Yadav (RJD), Bhagwant Mann (AAP), Akhilesh Yadav (SP), Sitaram Yechury (CPIM), Omar Abdullah (NC), T.R. Baalu (DMK), Mehbooba Mufti (PDP), Dipankar Bhattacharya (CPIML), Tejaswi Yadav (RJD), K.C. Venugopal (INC), Abhishek Banerjee (AITC), Derek O’Brien (AITC), Aaditya Thackeray (SS-UBT), D Raja (CPI), Supriya Sule (NCP), Manoj Jha (RJD), Firhad Hakim (AITC), Praful Patel (NCP), Raghav Chaddha (AAP), Sanjay Singh (AAP), Sanjay Raut (SS-UBT), Lalan Singh (JDU), and Sanjay Jha (RJD).
 
In Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said that no decision has been taken on PM candidate at the Patna meeting.  
“We have come together to save the diversity,” said Uddhav Thackeray, the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra. "We have different ideologies, but we have come together to save the diversity and integrity of the country.”
Lalu Prasad hit out at Modi. “The PM is distributing sandalwood in US when the country is facing problems. I am interacting with you after so many days. I am fit now, and I'll give the BJP a fight," he said.
 
Rahul Gandhi called it a "battle of ideologies”. “Indeed, there will be differences among us but we have decided to work together and protect the ideologies shared by us.”  
 
Mamata Banerjee said, “We have resolved on three things: We are united. We will fight unitedly. Don't call us opposition, we are also citizens of this country. We will fight together against the political vendetta of the BJP. Let our blood flow, but we will protect the people and the country.’
 
Sharad Pawar said, “Just like JP movement, our united front will get blessings of public".  Mehbooba Mufti said, “We can't let Gandhi's India to become Godse's country". 
 
The host, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar summed  up the Patna meeting. “Very positive talks were held, and we have decided to contest (Lok Sabha polls) together. Another meeting of all the (opposition) parties will be held to decide the next course of action. In that meeting, almost everything will be finalised. Mallikarjun Kharge will chair that meeting early next month."