The delicious dreams of Opposition leaders seem perilously close to being shattered.
In June 2023, there was a sense of anticipation bordering euphoria. There was a visible spring in the steps of Opposition leaders. Not too far back, the Congress had won a thumping victory in the Karnataka Assembly elections. There was excitable talk of the fading away of the so-called Modi Magic that seemed to have failed in Karnataka. There was hope and a newfound belief that a combined and united Opposition can not only stop the BJP juggernaut but actually humble it in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Liberals and intellectuals of a certain hue, who are convinced democracy died in May 2014, started salivating at the prospect of the “authoritarian” and “fascist” Modi being shown the door by the Indian voter. It is against this backdrop that the Opposition leaders and parties conjured up the I.N.D.I Alliance. From a marketing perspective, it was a smart move to brand the Opposition alliance as I.N.D.I.A. There were grand announcements that a “united” candidate would be put up against the BJP in almost 400 seats. The logic was: this would generate momentum for the Opposition, convince Indian voters that the I.N.D.I Alliance could be a viable proposition and thus lead to heavy looses for the BJP. Even in those days of heady optimism, every Opposition leader was aware that the BJP would be the largest party after the 2024 polls. The idea was to reduce it to less than 240 and somehow cobble up a UPA-style regime. The first aim was to ensure that the BJP loses about 70 seats it had won in 2019.
But eight months down the road, the delicious dreams of Opposition leaders seem perilously close to being shattered. Mamata Banerjee has publicly announced that her party Trinamool Congress will form no alliance with the Congress and will contest all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal on its own. In a similar triangular contest in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the TMC had won 22 seats, the BJP 18 and the Congress just two. The AAP Chief Minister of Punjab, Bhagwant Mann too has announced that his party will contest all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state. In any case, Punjab has been traditionally a weak spot for the BJP. In Uttar Pradesh, an alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal has been publicly announced, whereby the latter would contest from seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh. But there is no alliance yet with the Congress and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav seems to be in no mood to offer more than a mere handful of seats to the Congress. That decision has come as explained and analysed by the authors in the column last Sunday. Mayawati has publicly announced that her party BSP will not join any alliance and contest all 80 seats in the state on its own. The authors had argued how Mayawati taking away a 10% vote share has ensured that it is game set and match for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. It will not be surprising if the BJP tally in the state goes up from 63 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to 73 in 2024.
Now, the BJP tally in 2109 was 303. Other things remaining the same, the Uttar Pradesh numbers would propel the tally to 313. Of course, other things will not remain the same. The challenge for the I.N.D.I Alliance is to somehow ensure the BJP loses about 80 seats in other states. Since June 2023, the Opposition strategists have identified West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka as states where heavy losses could be inflicted on the BJP. The BJP won 18 seats in West Bengal in 2019, 17 in Bihar, 23 in Maharashtra and 25 in Karnataka to make a total of 83 seats from these four states. Perhaps the BJP would lose a few seats in Haryana and a few here and there in states like Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh where it is overwhelmingly dominant with vote shares well in excess of 50%. But the Opposition and its cheerleaders in the media have been consistently singling out these four states as the battlefields where the BJP could be humbled.
Now that Mamata Didi has announced there will be no alliance, how much below 18 can the BJP fall in the state? With each passing week, the TMC is ramping up her extreme “secularism” rhetoric to ensure that the Congress and the Left do not take away a chunk of the Muslim vote. The problem with this approach is that it inevitably leads to counter polarisation. It is polarisation that has propelled the BJP from being a non-entity in West Bengal till about 2016 to a formidable fighting force now with a vote share close to 40%. Ram and extreme secular rhetoric will ensure the vote share doesn’t fall significantly, if it falls at all. The authors reckon the BJP could lose a few seats at most. Bihar is another cup of tea altogether. Till December 2023, this looked like one state where the Opposition had a decisive edge over the BJP. A combination of RJD, JD(U), Congress and the Left would be truly formidable and the BJP could see its 2019 tally of 17 possibly shrink to single digits in 2024. But that was last year. The consecration of the Murti of Ram Lalla has led to a massive saffron undercurrent in the state (as it has in most parts of India). More importantly, by the time this column is published, it is possible that Nitish Kumar would have flip-flopped back into the NDA fold. Add to it the goodwill generated by the BJP by conferring the Bharat Ratna to the late Karpoori Thakur and you get the picture.
What about Karnataka where the BJP tally in 2019 was 25 out of 28 seats? In that election, the Congress and the JD(S) had formed a formal alliance that looked truly formidable on paper, just like the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh. Yet, the combined vote share of the “formidable” alliance was a shade over 41%, a full 10% behind the BJP vote share. This time, the BJP and the JD(S) have forged a formal alliance. One can do the maths and calculate how many seats the BJP will lose, given the saffron surge in the state post 22 January. That leaves out Maharashtra where the BJP, in alliance with the Shiv Sena, had won 23 of the 48 seats. This time around, the situation is hopelessly confusing. There are two versions of NCP and two versions of Shiv Sena. Which way will the traditional voters of these two parties go at a time of a saffron undercurrent? Will a sympathy vote go to Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar? The authors think that even if that happens, there is little possibility of the BJP falling drastically below 23.
The Opposition leaders know all this. Hence the wailing about EVMs has already started.
Yashwant Deshmukh is Founder & Editor in Chief of CVoter Foundation and Sutanu Guru is Executive Director.