NEW DELHI: Opposition has been able to drive the narrative and steer it clear from a debate on Modi vs Whom.
For an election that started as a walkover for the BJP, there have been some interesting twists and turns. What stands out foremost is the Opposition campaign for win or lose, it has been a game well played by the I.N.D.I.A bloc. The man of the match is probably the Congress manifesto that dominated the poll narrative, with its focus on jobs, caste survey and its Mahalaxmi scheme that promises Rs 1 lakh annually to the poor. Also, the Opposition has steered its campaign well away from the personality of the Prime Minister, and religion. There has been no temple-stops on Rahul’s itinerary as was the case during the last elections. There have also been no interviews with the media, as compared to the Prime Minister’s media blitzkrieg.
This was a strategy adopted by Rahul Gandhi and other Opposition leaders like Akhilesh Yadav. The idea was to keep the narrative focused on issues they wanted to raise, rather than be dictated by the media which tends to ask provocative questions aimed at making this debate centered around the personality of the Prime Minister. As a very senior SP leader told me, “the media will tell us the PM is accusing the Opposition of doing a mujra.
Whatever we say in reaction, will then be played up by the media and the PM as an attack on Modi, and you know how good he is at spinning a personal attack into an election issue.” This is one reason why Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav and even Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar and Stalin have avoided one-on-one interviews, restricting their campaign to rally grounds and social media. Akhilesh has given short tic-tacs (TV lingo for short interviews on the go) to journalists at the rally venue.
That strategy has been successful. Unlike last time, when the PM spun Mani Shankar Aiyar’s comments about him being a “chai-wallah” or “neech aadmi”, the Opposition has been very careful with its comments about Modi. This left the BJP little choice but to take up Sam Pitroda’s observations about inheritance tax or reboot an old interview of Mani Shankar Aiyar to play up his comments on Pakistan and China. All these met with limited success because they didn’t have the same draw as a real or imagined slur against Modi would. The narrative for the most part has been restricted to the Opposition playing the caste card and the BJP playing up the communal divide.
What has also been different about this election (compared to the previous two Lok Sabha polls) is that the Opposition has been able to drive the narrative and steer it clear from a debate on Modi vs Whom. This is a question for which the I.N.D.I.A bloc still does not have an answer. Instead used Modi’s war cry of “Ab ki baar, 400 paar” to spread the canard that the BJP planned to change the Constitution and end reservations. This had the BJP on the backfoot, pointing out that it was the Congress and not them that was more prone to misusing the Constitution such as during the Emergency, and not to mention the frequent misuse of Article 356. That narrative went back and forth for a while, before it went back to the other debate on mangalsutras, mutton and minorities. However, in the midst of all this, one did hear some conversation on jobs, paper leaks and free rations.
What is giving the Opposition, particularly the Congress, some hope is that the I.N.D.I.A bloc remained united and fought the election as one. The Congress is fighting its lowest number of seats ever—328. In 2019, it had contested 421 seats and in 2009 the number was 464. But this time around the larger role seems to be to defeat the BJP and clearly in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal the Congress has realised that allies are better placed to take on the BJP. Also the allies were in no mood to give in to the Congress party’s demands given the fact that its conversion rate was so low). For instance in 2019 the Congress had contested 67 seats in Uttar Pradesh and could win only one.
What is equally interesting is that unlike the Congress, the allies of the BJP don’t seem to be well placed, except for Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra. So while the strength of the Opposition lies in its allies, the BJP is largely counting on itself (via Modi) to deliver the bulk, while whatever seats the allies bring, will be the icing on the cake.
While the Congress is taking on the BJP directly in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and to a large extent in Karnataka, let’s take a look at the battle of the allies. The DMK seems to have retained its hold on Tamil Nadu, the RJD appears to be eating into the JD(U)’s vote bank—while the BJP vote in Bihar remains untouched—and Uddhav Thackeray seems to be attracting more sympathy than Eknath Shinde. In Uttar Pradesh too, Akhilesh Yadav seems confident that his plank of PDA—Pichhde, Dalit and Adivasis—is attracting crowds. Certainly he is leading the attack in Uttar Pradesh, being the star campaigner in Congress bastions as well as his own seats. According to the Samajwadi Party’s estimates the second and sixth phase of polling went remarkably in their favour.
More importantly, the allies all based their campaigns on the same narrative. And where the Congress can take heart is that it was a narrative spurred by its manifesto.
Which gives some reassurance to the grand old party that the alliance may well continue post the polls. Obviously, a lot will depend on how much the Congress scores, as Dhiraj Nayyar, political commentator pointed out, for the BJP the benchmark is 272 while for the Congress it is 100. For the Congress to retain credibility it has to not just improve its score but also ensure that it notches up a respectable figure. A three-digit win would go a long way in regaining its lost leadership.
In the meantime, the Congress has decided to boycott the exit polls, hoping that the result day would be different. Optimism aside, the one factor that has remained constant, despite the Opposition onslaught, is Brand Modi.
His appeal may be diminishing but the gap remains too wide to be breached, just yet. But the Opposition can definitely take credit for a battle well fought. Given the debacle of the last two Lok Sabhas, that is as good a postscript as any.