BJP’s game hits Oppn’s unity efforts

THE BJP was never going to take the Opposition’s exertion to coalesce and form a joint front lying down. It’s not in the BJP’s DNA to watch events unfold from the ringside even in states where it is not deeply invested yet. Recall how hard it tried to leave its footprint by means fair or foul on Tamil Nadu, that has not been Hindutva-hospitable so far.

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It is a wake-up call for the regional parties on their precarious state and their vulnerability to the BJP’s predation.

On the other hand, with 2024 fast approaching, lately the Opposition has not conducted itself as a spent force overwhelmed by the BJP’s power and resources, much less its machinations. The BJP’s antennae sensed a threat after the Opposition met in Patna on June 23. Doubtless, the congregation, unofficially helmed by the Congress, did not represent the entire non-BJP spectrum because the parties that subscribed to the equidistance principle, which in practice translated into keeping the Centre happy, stayed away for fear that their survival in future could be endangered if the BJP retained power in 2024. Even Arvind Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party chief and Delhi Chief Minister, while attending the sitting, queered the pitch with his insistence on getting the Congress to oppose the Central ordinance, which the latter refused to do. Peeved, Kejriwal skipped the press conference held after the Patna meeting.

The Opposition is slated to meet in Bengaluru this month, but the developments in Maharashtra have put a damper on its spirits. States such as Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu bring the largest number of Lok Sabha seats after Uttar Pradesh and are, therefore, critical for the BJP and the Opposition. It is incumbent on the BJP to retain or, ideally, better its 2019 tally while it is equally imperative for the Opposition, and especially the Congress, to unseat the ruling party and regain their salience. Arithmetically and otherwise, there’s no way that the Congress can regain its pre-eminence; at best, it can count as a factor with its partners. Therefore, it is important for the BJP to disturb the equations in states like Maharashtra and Bihar, where it is in power or is the principal Opposition party, and discombobulate the Congress and its friends.

Maharashtra was a sitting duck because exactly a year ago, the BJP carried out a coup d’etat and dislodged the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government after pulling away a big chunk of the Shiv Sena’s lawmakers. Bereft of several MPs and MLAs, Uddhav Thackeray, who had been the CM and the Sena chief, presided over a remnant that was renamed Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), headed by Sharad Pawar, nearly broke up in 2019 when the BJP, which lacked a majority despite emerging as the single largest party in the Assembly polls, spirited away Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar and some MLAs and swore him in as the Deputy CM. The misadventure ended because Sharad Pawar and his wife lost no time in persuading Ajit to return to the NCP. He was reinstated in the MVA government.

But his relationship, familial or political, with the patriarch was never the same because he had to exist under the shadow of Sharad Pawar’s daughter and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule, the unnamed legatee. Every now and then, reports surfaced on Ajit’s plans to return to the BJP. Although the BJP was ensconced with the Eknath Shinde faction of the Sena, it was perceptibly uncomfortable with CM Shinde because the ground reports indicated that Uddhav gained sympathy with the Sena’s rank and file as well as voters and Shinde was perceived as a mean renegade. Ajit Pawar was the ‘insurance policy’ the BJP sought to keep, both as a safeguard against the possible disqualification of Shinde and his MLAs in an ongoing Supreme Court case and downsize Shinde if he survived.

At 82 and in indifferent health, Sharad Pawar capped the NCP’s internal strains by himself resigning as the president and appointing Supriya as a working president, along with Praful Patel, Rajya Sabha MP and his mentee of several years. Patel betrayed him with Ajit and crossed over to the BJP camp.

The MVA was not exactly reduced to a shell. A day after the coup, Sharad Pawar did what most hardened politicos do when in trouble: reach out to people. He went to Karad in western Maharashtra, to the heart of the Maratha area and reached out to his core Maratha constituency and emphasised that the NCP would recoup.

Whether that happens is in the realm of the unknown, but Maharashtra is a wake-up call for the regional parties on their precarious state, even if they hang together in a large Opposition coalition, and their vulnerability to the BJP’s predation. In Bihar, the Janata Dal (United)-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress trio lost two of their allies to the BJP: the Vikassheel Insaan Party and the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular). The former’s base is among the Backward Caste Nishads while the latter draws its strength from Dalits. For the BJP, the icing on the cake will be a split JD(U), with Nitish Kumar’s MPs and MLAs walking into its fold.

The BJP is just as focused on upsetting the Samajwadi Party, its main opponent in Uttar Pradesh. The SP’s ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, is on its radar after reports claimed that Jayant Singh Chaudhary, the RLD chief, was ‘unhappy’ with SP leader Akhilesh Yadav for not giving him the seats he had asked for in the local body polls. Jayant did not attend the Opposition’s Patna meet and registered his presence with an anodyne note. If the BJP spirits away the RLD, it could help consolidate its Jat support more strongly.

However, there’s many a slip between the craftiest of strategies and the ground realities. The BJP might hope its demolition operation will pummel the Opposition out of existence, but the electorate might not necessarily think the same way. Sympathy and dissent are strong impulses in voters.