Is ‘United Opposition’ a mere farce?

New Delhi: After the presidential election, the unity of the Opposition parties has now been exposed even in the election of the Vice Presidential post. When two parties that did not vote for a common Opposition candidate in the presidential election returned to the Opposition camp this time, two major Opposition parties were thrown out. Mamata Banerjee, who opened the front for the most fight against the BJP and created the most ruckus for opposition unity, did not vote for the opposition candidate. She had asked her 36 MPs to abstain from voting, out of which two voted for the BJP candidate. Margaret Alva’s votes would have been over two hundred if her 34 MPs had voted.

Similarly, 7 Shiv Sena MPs also did not take part in the voting. These MPs belong to the Uddhav Thackeray camp. MPs of Eknath Shinde camp voted for BJP’s Jagdeep Dhankhar. Last time under pressure, Uddhav asked his MPs to vote for the NDA candidate. But this time he remained silent. So, his MPs remained absent.