Achi news desk-
1 day ago
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Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, ‘The Print’
When the 2024 election candidates are ready with their respective manifestos, the first batch of polls have also come out. I understand the skepticism of BJP rivals towards TV news channels ‘what else can you expect from these people’, but it would be better if there was some data to analyse.
And leave it to journalists and election pundits like us who predict the results after talking to a few dhabas and three taxi drivers, we can rest assured when announcing the victory of our favourites. And if the actual results are different then EVMs are to blame! But the reality is that you don’t need to be an election commentator to say that this time the BJP is way ahead in the contest.
The ambitious opposition alliance ‘India’ has done its best to stay united, but the BJP has also reshuffled the NDA. There is room for party competition, but even within the opposition parties, the conversation is about how Narendra Modi’s seats can be reduced, not how he can be ousted from power.
The atmosphere of the competition is like this at the moment. However, the opposition feels that the wind has strengthened in its favor due to the revelations relating to electoral bonds. And the slogan calling the BJP a ‘washing machine’ has substance too. But the question is, are they so influential that they will change the fortunes of the opposition? Most opposition leaders would look at the picture with a more balanced view. How to include Modi in reasonable figures.
The opposition’s position got an idea from a conversation I had with the leader of the opposition on an Indigo flight in early January. This third generation piece of a political family enjoys a strong caste vote bank in a limited area.
I asked him what he expected, and would his caste vote bank survive in the wake of Modi? His answer was that the caste vote bank will remain generally safe, but when people go to vote in the Lok Sabha elections, they will have only one face in front of them.
His question was how to assure people that there is an alternative to this face? He said that his party (and the opposition) are trying to find an issue that will bring a large number of people to the streets. For example, if you raise the issue of the ‘Agniveer’ scheme, only those affected by it will come forward to protest, the rest of the voters will remain indifferent.
I asked, then what is the answer? Has your politics that has been going on for three generations come to an end? His answer was, look at it this way, we are in a period that can be called a period like the ‘nuclear winter’ that came after a nuclear war.
The only thing we can do right now is to continue our existence until this period ends. This means keeping your vote bank, winning some seats and protecting your resources. Continue to exist until times change.
His idea seemed contentious and wise to me, except that a few days after this conversation he left the ‘India’ alliance and joined the NDA. Perhaps this is the best solution for them to deal with the ‘nuclear winter’, so that, whenever the situation changes, they stay in the field and are ready to choose new options.
While the opposition parties try to save themselves or keep themselves ready for the next battle, each party has its own challenges. For example, the challenge before Mamata Banerjee’s TMC is that if BJP’s figures for 2019 increase, her state government could become unstable.
Currently, the embattled Aam Aadmi Party may try to protest more this time than the drying up campaign in 2019. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) needs an element Sharad Pawar’s NCP performed better to maintain their existence.
If SP Akhilesh Yadav and RJD Lalu / Tejashwi Yadav perform as they did in 2019, it will be difficult for them to realize their dream of coming to power in their respective states. The funding sources of these parties are also limited.
Where they are not in power, these sources have dried up and their savings are dwindling. In the states where they are in power, they can ‘persuade’ the rich to give money but the ‘agencies’ are after them. It can also scare off potential donors.
This is the condition that parties have one state or a state and a half like ‘AAP’. The challenge to Congress is different. These days she was busy struggling to maintain internal unity. Its only achievement between 2014 and 2019 is to maintain its solid 20 percent vote share. But this does not give him enough seats to gain the status of formal leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. The question is how many seats should he aim to win to reassure his supporters and rivals that he can be a real challenge in the future?
80 seats will also be important for the Congress…
Congress leaders are experienced and have faced victory and defeat. They can believe that if they get more than 80 seats then their base will be stronger. This may be important for Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections this year.
(This is the author’s own opinion)
