PM Modi’s plan to win 2024 election while opposition struggles for unity

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, June 17, 2023: On June 23, leaders of about 20 Opposition parties—including the Congress, the AAP and the TMC—would be on one stage in Patna to display unity. During the show, the Opposition leaders, many of them sparring with one another so far, would be identifying areas of consensus to jointly fight the ruling BJP in the 2024 national polls.

 

On the other hand, also on June 23, PM Narendra Modi will address a gathering of Indian Americans in Washington on the role of the diaspora in India’s growth story. But that doesn’t mean the BJP is ignoring perhaps the biggest anti-Modi spectacle in recent times back home, and its potential implications. His advisors will, of course, be feeding him snapshots and sound bites from Patna.

India’s political Opposition has so far remained fragmented by prime ministerial ambitions, stated or otherwise, of leaders such as AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee of the TMC and Congress’s Rahul Gandhi. Even right before the Patna conclave, the formula of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is sweating it out to corral anti-BJP forces into one camp to defeat Modi, is facing opposition.

For example, the AAP has said it wouldn’t contest this year’s polls in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan only if the Congress didn’t fight the national polls in its strongholds of Delhi and Punjab. Similarly, Mamata Banerjee isn’t going to leave out too many seats for the Congress in West Bengal. This is when Nitish has proposed that in 2024, there should be a joint Opposition candidate, backed by all anti-Modi forces, for each of the BJP faces.

It’s a state of play that’s benefited the BJP the most, apart from PM Modi’s popularity, the Hindutva push and the governance blitz. Now, the long-term “threat” of a third term for PM Modi, coupled with the short-term crisis of arrests of some anti-BJP leaders by central investigating agencies, has forced Opposition forces into coming together.

This is when the BJP is facing ally problems within the NDA. In Maharashtra, the BJP is upset after a Sena advertisement called its Chief Minister Eknath Shinde more popular than his deputy Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP, the senior partner in the coalition government. In Tamil Nadu, ally AIADMK passed a resolution against state BJP chief Annamalai over his remarks on Jayalalithaa.

Already, the BJP’s internal surveys have shown that it could suffer losses in states such as Bihar where it has lost its partner, the JDU. And while in Maharashtra, Shinde, along with many Sena MLAs and MPs, has joined hands with the BJP, there are still some loyalists sticking around with the Thackerays now opposed to the NDA.

So, what is the BJP doing? If the Opposition is scrambling for unity, the BJP is doing the same within the NDA. This follows directions from PM Modi during a recent meeting with CMs and deputy CMs of BJP-ruled states.

And the results are showing. The Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP, which exited the NDA in 2018 over the Centre’s refusal to grant special status to Andhra Pradesh, is planning to return to the BJP-led alliance. Naidu is no longer a PM hopeful. Also, when he quit the Modi government five years ago, he thought the move would help him win the southern state. It didn’t happen.

Naidu has reportedly met BJP president JP Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi to discuss an alliance ahead of the Telangana polls later this year and of course 2024. Talks are also on to welcome back Punjab’s Shiromani Akali Dal, which quit the NDA in 2020 in protest against three agricultural reforms bills, into the alliance. Both TDP and the Akalis were founding members of the NDA. Reports also had it that the JDS in Karnataka could join the saffron grouping.

But it’s not only the big parties that the BJP may want to see back in the NDA. There are smaller groupings, with past NDA links, which could prove significant because of their caste appeals.

CHIRAG

One such party could be the Lok Janshakti Party (Chirag Paswan faction) which right now is neither here nor there. The Lok Janshakti Party or LJP was founded in 2000 by Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan when the Janata Dal was breaking up into factions under the weight of political ambitions of JP-Lohia-Karpoori followers. After the death of Ram Vilas Paswan, himself known to read the political climate for his survival, in 2020, Chirag and his uncle, Pashupati Paras, fought over his legacy.

In the run-up to the 2020 Bihar polls, Chirag, apparently nudged by the BJP, further weakened Nitish Kumar, then with the NDA, by fielding multiple candidates. Many of them were BJP rebels and they cut into the votes of the CM’s JDU.

Ultimately, in 2021, Pashupati Paras was elected the LJP’s leader in the Lok Sabha, and soon became a Modi minister. This humiliated Chirag who had declared himself as Modi’s Hanuman.

But after Nitish once again dumped the BJP, in August last year, and allied with the Opposition’s grand alliance (comprising the RJD, the Congress and the Left, besides some others), things started changing.

Last year, Chirag campaigned for the BJP in Bihar for the Mokama, Kurhani and Gopalganj bypolls, but it was the uncle and not the nephew who worked for the BJP in the recent Karnataka election. This might change. The saffron party is learnt to have told the Paswans to bury the hatchet and strengthen the NDA.

HAM

Meanwhile, Nitish’s SC and ST minister Santosh Kumar Suman has quit the Bihar government, saying there was pressure on him to merge his father’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) with the JDU.

Faced with a dampener for his Opposition unity efforts, the CM has said the HAM was anyway moving toward the BJP, and it’s good that Santosh Kumar has quit. The HAM was formed in 2015 when party founder Jitan Ram Manjhi left the JDU but has been switching sides since then. It won’t be a surprise to see the HAM on the NDA’s side.

VIP

Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) chief Mukesh Sahni, who was a Nitish minister, recently vacated his government bungalow and moved into rented accommodation, triggering speculation of political realignment ahead of the 2024 national polls. The speculation had started when the BJP-led central government provided him with Y+ security after Bihar withdrew his bodyguards. It’s worth mentioning that Sahni, a Mallah who wants his caste people to be recognised as Dalits, had left the BJP’s side to join Nitish. So, Sahni isn’t allergic to the saffron hue either.

There’s one more such name from Bihar. Senior JDU leader Upendra Kushwaha left Nitish’s camp early this year and floated his own party. He has worked with the BJP in the past and a ghar wapsi for him seems to be the only logical conclusion.

OP RAJBHAR

Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, Om Prakash Rajbhar of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, who fought with the Opposition Samajwadi Party in the 2022 UP polls, is keeping his cards close to his chest but something seems to be cooking. Early this month, UP BJP president Chaudhary Bhupendra Singh went to Varanasi to attend a family function hosted by Rajbhar, who was a Yogi Adityanath minister before being sacked. Singh said the BJP doesn’t have a problem working with someone who believes in its ideology. Also, an internal BJP survey said recently that it could be beneficial for the BJP to have Rajbhar on its side.

Looks like the 2024 election tourism will be peppered with a good dose of ghar wapsis for the BJP as the Opposition seeks to mount its most potent challenge before it’s too late.

Courtesy: India Today