Even as 24 opposition parties are set to meet in Bengaluru on July 17 and 18 to finalise the contours of a united opposition front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, too, has called for a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) meeting on July 18. The NDA meet appears to be a move to offset the attention the opposition forces have been getting in the last few months.
The opposition forces have been trying to find common ground to launch a united campaign against the Narendra Modi government ahead of the parliamentary polls. The first such concerted attempt was made on June 23 in Patna when, barring the Aam Aadmi Party, all opposition parties pledged to chalk out a common minimum agenda for the opposition front. The AAP had then insisted that it could be a part of the united opposition front only when the Congress formally opposed the controversial central ordinance which overturned the Supreme Court order establishing powers of the elected Delhi government over the Delhi bureaucracy. The Congress, after an initial flip-flop over the ordinance, seems to have blinked ahead of the Bengaluru meet. K.C. Venugopal, the Congress’s general secretary (organisation), on Sunday said that it will oppose the ordinance in the monsoon session of parliament beginning this week.
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Venugopal’s statement is being seen as yet another step by the grand old party to conjure up as big an opposition front as possible, even if it means joining ranks with arch rivals who are opposed to the BJP. With AAP now likely to participate in the opposition meeting, the two-day congregation of non-BJP parties is all set to decide on the common minimum agenda and possibly an implementable seat-sharing formula in different states.
The BJP, on the other hand, has moved from one goal post to another. Following its big victory in 2019, the Modi-led BJP has been unsparing with its allies, leading to a complete disintegration of the NDA. Formidable allies like the Shiromani Akali Dal, Janata Dal (United), Shiv Sena and other smaller parties have left the NDA one by one through Modi’s second tenure as the prime minister. However, the humiliating defeat in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and more recently, Karnataka, has made the BJP sit up and think about forging a pre-poll coalition to challenge the opposition front.
Until recently, several top BJP leaders had expressed confidence that the saffron party didn’t need a pre-poll coalition to win the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. However, a string of failures in assembly elections has seemingly made them re-strategise, which is why the party has reached out to regional parties like the N. Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh, H.D. Kumaraswamy-led Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka, Sukhbir Badal-led Akali Dal in Punjab, and smaller caste-based outfits led by Bihar’s Jitan Ram Manjhi, Chirag Paswan and Mukesh Sahni, UP’s Om Prakash Rajbhar, and Andhra Pradesh’s Pawan Kalyan.
Clearly, the BJP’s confidence has dwindled after the Karnataka assembly elections, in which the Congress handed it a comprehensive defeat. Moreover, the defeat has also possibly come as a realisation that the BJP hasn’t been able to expand its territorial footprint at all during Modi’s second tenure. It has lost the only southern state Karnataka, while its presence in states like Telangana, Odisha and West Bengal – where it put up a surprisingly good show in the 2019 polls – has only become weaker. Nitish Kumar and Uddhav Thackeray’s exit from the NDA has further affected its electoral prospects in Bihar and Odisha. The way the saffron party welcomed the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party into its fold indicates its weak footing in Maharashtra, where all opposition parties had united against the BJP in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
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The Hindi heartland is the only bastion where the BJP is still on a strong wicket, especially Uttar Pradesh which has 80 Lok Sabha seats. The exit of Ajit Pawar from the MVA in Maharashtra with 48 seats has undoubtedly improved the NDA’s prospects. But these alone may not be enough for the BJP to cross the majority mark. Precisely because of such factors, the BJP, that prided itself on its electoral strength, is looking to refuel the NDA by reaching out to older allies that it had no hesitation in deserting earlier.
By holding the NDA gathering to take the sheen away from the opposition meeting in Bengaluru, the BJP is now trying to hog media attention and keep the electoral race competitive. Beyond the optics, however, the NDA remains a much smaller coalition than the opposition front in the making, with the BJP as the only formidable political force in the alliance. By the sheer virtue of its dominance in the Hindi heartland, the BJP may still emerge as a winner in the final run. Yet, it is clear that the BJP’s alleged authoritarianism has brought traditional rivals in the opposition ranks together, even as it remains too distant from becoming a truly pan-Indian party.
