2024 Blueprint Key Agenda In Opposition Meet: The Challenges Ahead

One of the most important tasks at the hands of the opposition parties is to set the ball rolling on a possible Common Minimum Programme

Top leaders of 26 opposition parties, including the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and Trinamool Congress, are expected to attend the two-day brainstorming session in Bengaluru from today. One of the most important tasks at the hands of these parties is to set the ball rolling on a possible Common Minimum Programme that can help them function smoothly, address their political compulsions and the few ideological contradictions that exist among them. Congress leaders have said that a sub-committee will also be formed for the same.

The idea of a Common Minimum Programme or national agenda for governance is not uncommon in India which has seen many political alliances at the centre. A CMP is usually a set of policies and programmes that all partners of an alliance agree to abide by for the smooth functioning of the alliance, also outlining what the front plans to do, basically setting a broad agenda that is agreeable to all parties involved. The major coalitions -- the United Front in 1996, BJP-led NDA from 1998 to 2004 and Congress-led UPA from 2004 to 2014 - were all post-poll arrangements with parties and all of them had a documented common agenda of sorts.

In 1994, when the Congress and its allies won only 217 seats, it had to be supported by the Left Front which had won 63 seats in that election. A CMP was then created to have one programme that all the allies would agree to and which the government can then implement. A committee under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was asked to do this. The committee also had other members, such as Pranab Mukherjee and Jairam Ramesh. In 1996, it was CPM's Sitaram Yechury along with P Chidambaram and S Jaipal Reddy who had drafted the United Front government's CMP, which was also integrated in the then Prime Minister Deve Gowda government's budget for 1996-1997. The Atal Bihar Vajpayee government that consisted of over 20 parties too had an "Agenda for Development, Good Governance and Peace". This NDA alliance was perhaps the largest coalition that brought together many regional parties who agreed to be part of an alliance with the BJP, provided the party's core agenda like Ram Temple, Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code are kept on the back-burner. Most of the regional parties except Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samajwadi Party, RJD, and the Left were part of the NDA at one point of time or another from 1998 to 2004.