Rise of regional parties: Stalin may attend HDK’s swearing-in

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao could be among the attendee when HDK assumes oath of office with the support of Rahul Gandhi’s Congress party shows that there would be more to it than meets the eye.

Add the invitation former PM Deve Gowda has sent to DMK working president MK Stalin to attend his son’s swearing in ceremony, it would require no great political wisdom to comprehend that the ceremony would be a union of like-minded parties rallying against the so called saffron juggernaut, which struggles to march south below the Vindhyas.

Stalin, who, like Mamata, had publicly cited Karnataka as a template for an alliance of secular regional parties and the Congress president is likely to leave for Bengaluru on Tuesday for a tete-a-tete with regional partners like him who have been stonewalling Narendra Modi-Amit Shah’s BJP in their respective states. Notably, Mamata and Stalin had preceded Gowda’s by uniformly proposing a Karnataka-like partnership, either directly or subtly, for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections against the Modi regime.

A DMK insider did not mind admitting, “Bengaluru swearingin will be a trial for 2019.

More than uniformity in Stalin and Mamata’s remarks, readiness of KCR to attend the formation of a Congress-backed government should sufficiently explain the political undertone of the ceremony.”

“The moves are made by the regional parties. Not only Stalin, even Mamata and a few others have only been invited by the JD(S), another regional party and not the Congress.

It is a culmination of regional players. Congress has to participate,” said the DMK senior before claiming that the fractured mandate in Karnataka was a setback to BJP and Congress alike.

“While the BJP has failed to make an entry in to south, the results have reduced the stakes of the Congress, which will be welcome by all regional players,” the leader added.