‘If the Bihar Chief Minister and former Maharashtra Chief Minister remain in the Opposition’s front till Lok Sabha polls next year, the situation might be favourable for any such alliance’.
NEW DELHI: With the Congress toiling to unite the opposition ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the question remains as to whether the parties in Opposition will accept leadership of Rahul Gandhi at all. The Opposition did look united after Rahul’s disqualification from Lok Sabha, but the things are not moving ahead now.
However, Congress President Mallikarjuna Kharge has been a bit successful in uniting the UPA. It will be a big achievement if Congress manages to keep the UPA intact until the Lok Sabha polls. Undoubtedly, the BJP is likely to face challenges in Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. The RJD-Congress-JD(U) combine in Bihar, JMM-Congress alliance in Jharkhand, Shiv Sena-led MVA in Maharashtra and the DMK-led front in Tamil Nadu are stronger than the BJP as of now. If the opposition remains united, the BJP may be in trouble in 2024. Only Bihar and Maharashtra together account for 88 Lok Sabha seats, of which BJP-led NDA had won 80 seats in 2019. Nitish Kumar and Uddhav Thackeray were with the BJP then. Now they are with the Congress. The saffron party is still hopeful of political realignment before the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress is also facing challenges in the states of the Hindi belt.
Seat sharing with the regional alliance partners will be another challenge, as the grand old party is fully dependent on NCP and Uddhav in Maharashtra, RJD in Bihar, JMM in Jharkhand and on the DMK in Tamil Nadu. Congress will be able to create some pressure on these regional parties only when it gives splendid performance in the five states going to polls this year. Voting will take place in Karnataka next month. The elections will be held in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana in November-December. Congress is in a sound position in four states barring Telangana. But the party will find it tough to win these states if incidents like Sachin Pilot’s dharna and infighting continued. Even if Congress wins Karnataka, choosing a CM face will be a challenging task as there are several contenders for CM post there. Kharge is also being speculated for the top post in the state.
Meanwhile, the internal tussle is rampant in the Congress in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. However, Kamal Nath has no challenges like that in Madhya Pradesh. Congress heavyweight in the state, Digvijay Singh is backing Nath. Undeniably, the party leadership’s inability to control the infighting has harmed the Congress’ poll prospects in the past. Needless to say, the stature of Congress will grow if it forms government in these states. This will then favour the party in Lok Sabha polls also, as MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Karnataka together account for more than 100 seats in Lok Sabha. The BJP had swept most of the seats from these states in 2019. Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh together account for around 200 Lok Sabha seats. If Congress focuses on these states properly, it could pose a formidable challenge to the BJP. It remains to be seen at the same time how the Congress managers deal with the infighting.
Meanwhile, AAP, Samajwadi Party, BSP, BRS and TMC will hardly agree to fight polls under Congress’ banner or Rahul’s leadership. Therefore, the Congress will have to fight a lone battle in the states such as UP, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Bengal.