Congress scion Rahul Gandhi was recently in Cambridge, where he talked about attacks on the weaker sections of society in India, namely, minorities, tribals, and Dalits. On the same day, Congress lost three minority and tribal states in the North-East: Nagaland, Tripura, and Meghalaya.
The North-East has been said to be a bastion of the grand old Congress party. Apart from Congress being decimated in the Northeast, there is another aspect to the assembly elections. The assembly elections held in 2023 will set the ball rolling for the 2024 general elections. With three states down and six left, all eyes are on just one question: ‘Who will be the next Prime Minister of India?’
Let’s put some names together,
Would it be current Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the BJP repeating another term?
Or the Bharat Jodo Yatra would have an impact, thus making Rahul Gandhi eligible?
Or would it be some common candidate from India’s opposition parties coming together, say the Mahagathbandhan?
Well, for this, we need to do a little math; trust me, it will be little.
The political landscape of India
Since 2014, the Bhartiya Janata Party has been governing the state. Apart from the BJP, there are seven national parties: the Communist Parties, the Trinamool Congress, the BSP, and obviously the Indian National Congress. But it doesn’t end here. There are over 50 state-level parties encashing regional aspirations, all with individual ambitions, egos, and agendas.
In 2014, the BJP garnered 31% of the votes and won 282 seats, while the National Democratic Alliance won a total of 336 seats. In 2019, the BJP contested around 80% of seats, while the rest were fought by its allies. This time the party added 6.4% to its 2014 vote share, thus taking it to 37.4%, twice the Congress vote share of 20%, or 0.2% higher than 2014. The five big states that contributed to the victory were Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Bihar.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP and its allies won 64 out of 80 seats, cornering SP and BSP to just 5 and 10 seats, respectively. In Maharashtra, the BJP won 23 out of 48 seats, its ally Sena won 18 seats, and Congress just won 1. In West Bengal, the BJP won 18 seats, while in Bihar it won 17 out of 40.
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What worked in the BJP’s favour?
How can the BJP, formed in recent years, take over the grand old Congress party twice? This was a major question in the minds of political observers. There were several factors that worked in the favour of the saffron party, which can be referred to as the BJP’s “Hindutva plus Vikas” model.
Battles over beef bans and Nehru, appropriation of Sardar Patel and Ambedkar, and promotion of regional icons, along with progressive initiatives like working infrastructure like roads and bridges and toilets, paid off. PM Modi’s idea of a “welfare state,” with a raft of welfare schemes aimed at delivering the basics to the last man standing like cooking gas, power connections, bank accounts, and health insurances, helped the BJP create another vote bank referred to as the ‘Labharthi Varg.”
The nationalist appeal too worked for the party, presenting Prime Minister Modi as the decisive leader with strong national security credentials. The opposition too came together to help the BJP have an edge with the splitting of votes.
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The idea of an anti-BJP coalition
In India, multi-party governments have been a reality. Since 2019, the opposition parties have been trying to make a collective front to take on a behemoth like the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah-led BJP and halt the juggernaut. However, the basic premise suggests that when anti-BJP votes get divided, the saffron party gains. The same seems to be repeating just as India gears up for the 2024 elections.
There are many leaders with prime ministerial ambitions, ranging from Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal. KCR and Kejriwal have been pushing for opposition unity without the Congress. The Aam Aadmi Party has gone ahead to declare itself the viable opposition against the BJP. While most are eyeing the Congress to lead the way. This has muddied the waters for the opposition to a non-returnable extent.
While the Congress party is still not over its short-lived stint, that is the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The grand old party is not making any bones about its ambitions. Observers say that it cannot do so due to back-to-back political debacles, from Gujarat to the North East. While the Congress has officially said that ‘those who believe an anti-BJP front is possible without the Congress are living in a fool’s paradise, No one should make the mistake of writing off the Congress.’ On the other hand, the opposition parties have already started distancing themselves from the Congress party.
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Mamata’s TMC to go solo in these LS polls
The Trinamool Congress has miserably lost two of the most important elections: the Tripura assembly elections and the Sagardighi polls, both of which it was sure of winning. This loss has widened the gap between Mamata Banerjee and her coalition parties. Regarding the Tripura elections, Banerjee has said, “The ones voting for the CPI(M) or the Congress party are actually voting for the BJP.”
And a political slugfest has begun between the TMC and the Congress party after the latter’s victory in the Sagardighi polls, with both parties accusing each other of acting in the interest of the saffron party. Mamata Banerjee even attributed her party’s defeat to the ‘immoral alliance’ that Congress is trying to forge with the BJP.
In the wake of this slugfest, Mamata Banerjee announced that her party would fight the upcoming general elections on its own. Mamata said, “In 2024, we will see an alliance between Trinamool and the people. We will not go with any of the other political parties. We will fight alone with the people’s support. Those who want to defeat the BJP, I believe they will vote for us.”
The opposition is divided and directionless, and the parties are struggling to find a common platform. The disunity in the opposition ranks and a clear jostling for who should be the face of the anti-BJP alliance or which parties should be part of the ‘club’ give Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP a straight-up advantage. The BJP has too picked up a similar line, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah saying that there is no competition for the prime minister and that the people of India are solidly behind him. Some other day, let’s discuss what the vote tally could be for different parties.
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