India is all set to witness another grand celebration of democracy in 2024, in the form of upcoming parliamentary elections. However, the irrelevant opposition parties have begun with their preparations for the same. There are many ‘contenders’ from the Opposition’s front, like Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, KCR who dream of being the ‘Prime Minister’ of the largest democracy in the world. Well, how things unfold is a matter of time but one thing is for sure the Bhartiya Janta Party will reap the benefit of the multidimensional political battle that is set to unfold in 2024.
Course correction adopted at Congress’ ‘Chintan Shivir’
The grand old party recently organised Chintan Shivir at Udaipur after drubbing by the Bhartiya Janta Party, in both assembly as well as Parliamentary elections. The party took some key decisions at the Shivir, in order to revamp.
The major decisions include, Gandhi’s leading the party from the front in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. To begin with this, the party will kick off ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ which will be a mass outreach program spanning from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
According to Congress’ de-facto head Rahul Gandhi, only party that can take on the BJP on the national level is the Congress party. For this, the party has announced a clear-cut roadmap that suggests that the party not only seeks to restore connection but is also open to feedbacks.
All of these have been done in keeping the upcoming election season in mind, in which Congress under the leadership of Gandhis is aiming towards a political comeback.
Read More- Congress’ ‘Chintan-Shivir’ is a sham
Mamata Banerjee’s prime ministerial dreams
For a long time, Mamata Banerjee has pitched herself as the apt candidate to lead the third front against the BJP on the national level eyeing the 2024 general elections.
In order to live the aforementioned dream, the Trinamool Congress has launched a campaign to project the West Bengal CM as the next Prime Minister of India. The campaign has been launched on the digital platform to challenge the supremacy of BJP in the digital arena. The campaign was launched in the form of a website named ‘India wants Mamata Di’.
TMC has been on an aggressive mission to expand outside the state of West Bengal. Though it has faced defeats in states like Goa, the party is now eyeing the prime ministerial seat with the dream of Mamata Banerjee leading the front.
The Third Front and the contested supremacy
This is not the first time that Mamata Banerjee has proposed her name for leading the Third Front. The concept of third front came into existence as soon as India started to move towards a “Congress Mukt Bharat”. Regional parties like TMC, AIADMK, TRS, TDP, and SP began to come together to form an anti-BJP coalition free from Congress.
Read More- Third Front: viable alternative to Congress led UPA or exercise in vain?
The regional parties have been pushing their leaders for the cause of leading the third front. And here comes the main catch, the leaders could not find an uncontested leader, to lead the pack. Often these kinds of coalitions lead to infighting within the coalition parties and the rich political history has several examples of this, like the VP Singh’s tenure or say the 1996’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure.
The third front has time and again failed to provide a stable government to the people. In the effort to stop the Modi-Shah juggernaut, the opposition parties have failed badly. And this time, it appears that in the attempt to halt the BJP juggernaut, the opposition parties are all set to give the BJP a smooth walk-over in the 2024 Parliamentary elections.
BJP heading for 400+ this time
The Bhartiya Janta Party has been victorious back-to-back in 2014, then 2019 elections. The party is all set to register another massive victory in the 2024 elections, suggest the surveys.
The BJP is all set to win the upcoming elections, and there are many factors which will affect the elections. It’s not just BJP’s hard work and resilience, but the opposition, which doesn’t exist will also play an important part. The opposition parties are trying hard and are fighting among themselves in order to present themselves as the viable opposition. Also, the parties like TMC, Congress thrive on similar voterbase practicing politics of minority appeasement. Hence, these parties will end up eating up each others votebanks, making the elections triangular or quadrilateral
The BJP has already begun preparing grounds for the 2024 battle, two years before the general elections. The party has formed a task force that has identified 74,000 booths across the country where the party needs to connect to the voters.
The BJP has won 303 seats in the 2019 parliamentary elections and this time it has set its eyes on the 400+ mark. Along with the party itself, the opposition is also hellbent and is making sure that BJP returns to power in 2024 with a bigger mandate.
