'Modi-phobia' brought opposition parties together: Rajya Sabha MP Dinesh Sharma

Lucknow: Rajya Sabha member Dinesh Sharma on Sunday said opposition parties which are trying to put up a facade of unity for the Lok Sabha poll will be fighting each other after three months.

Due to their inflated egos and poor performance in the election, they will not be able to "choose even a leader of the opposition (in the Lok Sabha) from amongst themselves", the BJP leader and former Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister told PTI in an interview.

The Lok Sabha poll was announced by the Election Commission on Saturday and it will be held in seven phases -- April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1. Counting of votes will be held on June 4.

Sharma claimed that opposition parties are not in the election scene anywhere this time. Even the southern states will witness the sunset of opposition parties and the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in this election, Sharma asserted.

"Some opposition parties have come together for the Lok Sabha election. But due to inflated egos of their leaders, they won't be able to select the leader of opposition from amongst themselves," said the MP, who recently toured some southern states, including Tamil Nadu where the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a member of the opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc, is in power.

The bloc was formed by some opposition parties, including the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Trinamool Congress, to take on the BJP in the election.

They have come together due to "Modi phobia", Sharma said and exuded confidence that the BJP and its allies will win the Lok Sabha poll with more than 400 seats.

The third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be full of great possibilities, he said.

Sharma also hit out at SP chief Akhilesh Yadav for comparing Prime Minister Modi with Adolf Hitler.

"The real Hitler was the one who opened fire on 'karsevaks' in Ayodhya, and during whose time, people who talked about the Ram temple (in Ayodhya) were jailed," Sharma said in an apparent reference to SP founder, the late, Mulyam Singh Yadav's government.

"If they love Hitler so much, then they should also remember the Emergency imposed by their ally Congress and the anti-Sikh riots," he said.

Sharpening his attack on the opposition, the Rajya Sabha member said that the "election season is forcing even the opposers of Lord Ram and Sanatan Dharma to chant 'Ram Ram'".

"SP leaders who opened fire on Ram devotees are now building a temple in Etawah," the BJP leader said. Mulayam Singh Yadav's hometown is Safai in Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh.

In an apparent reference to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Sharma said, "Nowadays, a former Congress president puts sandalwood powder on his forehead, but wonders why people are looking up to Modi."

He also termed the coming together of the SP and the Congress in Uttar Pradesh for the general election as a "meeting of two 'parivarvadi (dynastic)' parties".

Sharma claimed that the BJP will perform "very well" in the southern states this time.

"In Karnataka, there is anger towards the Congress, and the BJP will get more seats this time as compared to the previous election as it has a tie-up with the JD-S (Janata Dal (Secular)). It will be really surprising if the Congress manages to win even a single seat there," he said.

On Tamil Nadu and referring to Prime Minister Modi's political programmes there, Sharma said, in that state, "I had camped for quite some time, and I felt that the BJP is going to bag a huge number of votes on its own."

Modi is on a four-day visit to five southern states -- Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka -- till March 19. His tour of the region is part of the BJP's determined southern push for the Lok Sabha election.

The five states along with the union territory of Puducherry, which has one constituency, account for 130 of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats in the country.

"In Andhra Pradesh, there is an anti-incumbency wave (against the YSR Congress Party). The TDP-BJP alliance will prove effective. In Kerala, the Christian community has got attracted towards the BJP. To summarise, I would say that the south will witness the sunset of the opposition, and there will be a sunrise for the BJP," he added.

Andhra Pradesh will witness simultaneous legislative assembly and general elections on May 13.

"Opportunistic opposition parties, who abuse each other, are forming mismatched alliances among themselves to save their existence. Those who talked about sending each other to jail are hugging each other today," he said.

"Due to Modi phobia, they have been forced to come together. The parties that are coming together now are going to be seen fighting among themselves after three months," he said.

Uttar Pradesh that sends 80 members to the Lower House of Parliament will see voting in all the phases of the general election. In 2019, the BJP and its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) won 64 seats -- 62 and two respectively. The SP-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance managed 15 seats and the Congress one.