Alliance versus Alliance

It has not been easy to get all, (well almost all) on board to forge a national alliance of disparate opposition political parties but it eventually happened on July 18 at Bengaluru when 26 parties met and decided to call the conglomeration as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance(INDIA). Hours later in Delhi, the BJP had managed to put up another impressive show when 38 parties teamed up to be under the NDA. Constituents of the newly formed INDIA may have a good reason to be celebrating with a sigh of relief that they finally managed to come together at Bengaluru. As commented in several issues of this newspaper, the opposition parties or non-NDA parties, have been airing the need to get together in order to halt the march of the BJP juggernaut since 2019. What has brought opposition parties together and forced the Congress to come down from its high horse and treat other parties as equals is the allure of the majority anti-Modi vote. It may be recalled that in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP alone received a whopping 37.36 % of the votes cast countrywide. The NDA together received around 45% of the votes. The remaining 55% was shared among all other non-NDA political parties. Based on this premise, opposition parties feel they could still give it a shot in 2024 to beat the BJP especially after former allies Shiv Sena and Akali Dal quit the NDA. However, the break up of Shiv Sena and NCP in Maharashtra has weakened these two major INDIA partners. Even after formation of INDIA, bitter rivals in West Bengal among the constituents such as CPM-Congress and TMC do not see eye to eye.The recent West Bengal panchayat elections only reinforced the deep bitterness between them. Even in Punjab and Delhi, the Congress is still bitterly opposed to the AAP. Opposition unity was elusive since Congress insisted that Rahul be the face of the opposition against Modi which was opposed by TMC, AAP, BRS etc. Congress has finally accepted that opposition unity is needed if it wants to remain relevant and so has decided to not insist on leading the opposition. This was declared at the Bengaluru meet, when Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said Congress is not in contention for the post of prime minister. This has left the door open for opposition alliance and the race open for the likely opposition leader. TMC leader Mamata Banerjee has been pitched to lead INDIA against Modi in 2024. Likewise Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal nurses an ambition to become the prime minister. One also cannot rule out Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar as a likely candidate for the post of prime minister. After the Congress won a landslide in the Karnataka election, Rahul’s approval rating shot up to 27% while, Modi’s approval rating was at 43%. Mamata, Kejriwal and Nitish have much lower approval ratings than Rahul. What is clear is that even if constituents of INDIA resolve the leadership issue, it will still not be enough to defeat Modi who enjoys overwhelming nationwide approval rating. However, Modi’s dominant approval rating is not a guarantee to prevent opposition parties from winning most seats in their respective states to give the alliance enough overall majority in the Lok Sabha in 2024, if they can get their act together.