New Delhi
With electoral victory in Karnataka and success in keeping alliances intact in Maharashtra and Bihar so far, Congress has high hopes for 2024 parliamentary elections. Therefore, the grand old party has turned its entire focus on “opposition unity”. The party wants to ensure that the opposition votes do not get divided in the upcoming elections.
Congress former president Sonia Gandhi will attend a crucial two-day meeting in Bengaluru beginning from Monday to prepare strategy on this line. Congress strategists believe that leadership issues will not be raised in the opposition camp after Sonia Gandhi started leading from the front. It was Sonia who was instrumental in forming UPA uniting several parties in opposition in 2004. However, Congress had to suffer political loss due to the alliance that lasted in power for ten years.
Out of power for nine years now, Congress does not want to take any risk now. That’s why the Congress has chosen the “path of alliance”. The party strategists believe that if the opposition fights together, the Congress can give a tough fight to BJP.
Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka together account for 116 Lok Sabha seats. If Jharkhand’s 14 and Bengal’s 42 seats are added to it, the total becomes 172. In these seats, the BJP can be given a tough fight if opposition remains intact. Congress is also eying Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh as a big opportunity. Congress in its meeting in Bengaluru may announce support to AAP on the ordinance issue. In return, Congress and AAP may be in a seat sharing pact for Delhi. Real test of Opposition unity will be in Rajya Sabha when the ordinance comes up there.
All these states together account for 250 seats in Lok Sabha. Barring Bengal, the BJP had swept most of these state seats in the last polls. Congress is confident to win in MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan which will impact LS poll outcome. These seats are not going to be cakewalk for BJP this time. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s public welfare schemes like OPS can help Congress immensely in parliamentary elections. Similarly, seats will increase in states like Haryana, Delhi, UP if Opposition votes do not split.
Congress’ strategy looks quite impressive on paper. Challenges for BJP have grown in Maharashtra. It is doubtful if the recent split in NCP-Thackeray’s party will be of any help to BJP. Voters are still emotionally attached to Uddhav Thackeray and NCP leader Sharad Pawar. BJP thinks otherwise. It says Opposition votes will split. Parties including K. Chandrashekar Rao’s BRS will contest polls strongly which may benefit BJP. With LS polls still 10 months away, more political realignments cannot be ruled out.
BJP in alliance with Shiv Sena won 41 out of 48 seats in the 2019 LS polls. Of these, 18 seats were bagged by the Shiv Sena faction that Uddhav is leading. Now, Congress and NCP alliance is intact there.
BJP had fought in Bihar in alliance with JDU and won 39 out of 40 seats in 2019. But now JDU and Congress are together there. Similarly, BJP had won 25 out of 28 seats in Karnataka in 2019. Now Congress has scored a landslide win in the southern state and raised hopes of Opposition. If Assembly poll results are converted into Lok Sabha seats, Congress may win 20 seats in Karnataka.
Meanwhile, BJP thinks that the Opposition does not have any significant face to challenge PM Modi. So, the Lok Sabha results will be different from the Karnataka assembly outcome. BJP has high hopes from the UCC and Ram Mandir issues. Opposition does not have any issue to counter the BJP on these programmes. Importantly, the politics of Hindutva and polarisation has always gone in favour of the BJP.