Opposition gears up for 2024 battle
THE bugle has been sounded and the battlelines have been drawn. Campaigning for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is underway, less than eight months before voters wend their way to the polling booths. The main roads and streets of my city, Mumbai, were peppered with BJP, Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) flags in a massive show of strength recently. A meeting of INDIA, the challenger to the ruling party, was held in Mumbai last week. Even before the arrival of INDIA’s leaders, the BJP and its allies, the Shinde Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP faction, put up their flags, leaving not an inch of space for their opponents to do likewise.
If all those who did not vote for the BJP last time round repeat their choice next year, the ruling party will be in trouble.
Opposition parties have sworn to oppose PM Narendra Modi and topple him from his perch in the next Lok Sabha elections by nominating a consensus candidate for each of the 450-odd seats they intend to contest against the BJP. If the BJP wins a third term, none of the Opposition leaders is assured of her or his democratic right to distance herself or himself from the policies of PM Modi. All Opposition leaders are well aware of the danger, but they are struggling to determine how much each has to sacrifice in order to fight unitedly.
The BJP, too, has realised that the intent of the 20-odd parties arrayed against it has solidified over the past year. The meeting in Mumbai has confirmed its worst fears. Even before the Mumbai event, the BJP had put its well-oiled election machinery into motion by analysing its prospects of victory in all Lok Sabha constituencies and choosing most of its candidates well in advance.
INDIA will not find it easy to match the BJP’s ease and speed in finishing this difficult job. The BJP has only one leader. His word is final. There is no one in INDIA to command such unmitigated power and authority. It will be forced to pull its punches even when it is necessary to punch hard. How it manages such feats will test its tenacity and ability. The Opposition has not developed major cracks at this incipient stage. It was felt by casual observers that it would flounder from the word go as it was a mix of unusual bedfellows. That it passed the first test of solidarity is a measure of its will to survive despite disparate ideologies. A danger sign was visible when West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee insisted that the allotment of seats to be contested by each of INDIA’s constituents should have been decided at the Mumbai meet. AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal supported Mamata on this demand.
There was an indication that West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab would be excluded from INDIA’s plan to fight as one unit. If that proves to be a correct prediction, as it well might be, the first chink in the Opposition’s armour will have appeared for the BJP to exploit.
INDIA has not fallen into the trap of nominating one of its many leaders as the ‘chosen one’. That is exactly what the BJP would like. The original idea of Modi v/s INDIA is the correct formula to adopt if a formidable opponent like Modi has to be bested. None of the combined Opposition’s leaders stands a ghost of a chance against Modi, man to man.
Where the Opposition needs to attack the BJP and its only leader, Modi, is the spread of hate and fear in the country. That brand of politics has succeeded in reviving in many, many bosoms the revulsion, till recently dormant, against Islamic beliefs and customs. It succeeded in consolidating a big chunk of the Hindu vote in favour of the BJP and brought it to power in 2014. The trend was confirmed in 2019. But, of late, many thinking men and women, who had switched to supporting the saffron party because of its strong and decisive leader, are having second thoughts about their choice. They have realised that too many decisions have been taken without wise counsel, such as the demonetisation and the abrupt imposition of a nationwide lockdown that halted economic activity during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wrong decisions taken on the spur of the moment can be forgiven, but certainly not the ideological programme of spreading division based on religion. That will be a suicidal path to follow. Pakistan’s Gen Zia-ul-Haq had adopted this path in his Muslim-dominated country. During the 10 years he ruled Pakistan, he reduced it to the status of a failed state. PM Modi should have learnt a lesson therefrom. Modi is a shrewd and astute politician, but he must also imbibe lessons from history.
No country whose politics rests purely on religion can rise to the status of a world power. No Islamic country has achieved that mark. When religious beliefs override social and economic advancement, the end result will always be negative.
PM Modi is a thinking man. He must have realised that the need to garner votes to gain political power has put the country on the path of hate and division. Course correction will not be easy. Too many extremist forces have been unleashed. To put the genie back into the bottle will be difficult. But only he can attempt that exercise for the simple reason that he has become indispensable to his party.
The fear is that the ability to rein in the VHP and the Bajrang Dal may have slipped out of Modi’s hands. At election time, they are a necessity. In between elections, they are a menace, as the recent events in Nuh have demonstrated. But once they are unleashed and have tasted blood, it is difficult for the leaders to regain control.
INDIA has a fair chance to best Modi in 2024. The numbers are on its side. If all those who did not vote for the BJP last time round repeat their choice next year, the BJP will be in trouble. Its only hope then would be to ensure that the Opposition’s inter-party rivalries came to the fore.
