2024 is the year of reckoning for NDA, I.N.D.I.A

New Delhi: For a country that has a huge appetite for politics and cricket, the line-up for the next 12 months looks promising. Elections are scheduled in seven states and the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. And then there is the mother of all battles slated for the summer of 2024 - the world’s largest elections with over a billion eligible voters exercising their franchise to elect a new government in New Delhi.

2024 will also be a year of many firsts in contemporary Indian politics. Narendra Modi will seek to equal the unbeaten record of three consecutive Lok Sabha wins held by the first Prime Minister of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru. It would also be the first time that a non-Congress government would complete 10 years in office at the Centre. And also, the first time the Grand Old Party has been out of power in Delhi for an extended period.

As the battle lines are drawn and redrawn, the two sides, the NDA and I.N.D.I.A, finalise their playing 11 in what will be a fascinating contest of resources and resilience, of ideas and ideology.

BJP enters this contest with a clear and categorical four-cornered frame of reference. If this frame represents its idea of India, then the first corner is stapled to Modi’s ability to provide credible leadership to the NDA and win elections - both at the Centre and in states. The “Modi ki Guarantee” slogan embodies this concept.  

The second corner of the frame represents the party’s experiments with subaltern politics and social justice. The selection of chief ministers and their deputies in the just concluded assembly polls is a point in the case of how the party is extremely cautious in building a narrative around core caste issues.

The third corner of this idea is affixed to the BJP’s ability to create a beneficiary class of voters, over and above the class and caste affiliations. Driving key social sector schemes to saturation mode under the ongoing Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra is part of this exercise.

RSS’s social and cultural nationalism constitutes the critical fourth corner on which the whole picture hangs. While the completion of the temple complex in Ayodhya will take another couple of years, the electoral mobilisation around its inauguration has already begun.

For the I.N.D.I.A bloc, a disparate group of regional parties and an enfeebled Congress, the biggest task is thus to find a coherent and credible alternative to the BJP’s big picture.

What are the differential elements in Rahul Gandhi’s “battle of ideologies?” If conducting a caste census is the war cry, what are the tangible benefits for the SC, ST, and OBC communities of such an exercise? How is the I.N.D.I.A alliance's plank of social justice qualitatively different from that of the BJP?

If only freebies could win elections, why did Congress win some as in Karnataka and Telangana, and lose power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh?

The other major challenge in framing and articulating an alternative narrative is engendered by the inherent contradictions in the alliance. What may work wonders for the DMK in Tamil Nadu could blunt Congress’ campaign in heartland states. Seat-sharing would pose another daunting challenge for the allies. Congress’ strong pitch for minority votes has rubbed Mandal parties the wrong way. Leadership issues have already ruffled many feathers as aspirants try to outsmart one another. Some parties are in a fix on whether to attend the Ayodhya Ram Temple inauguration.

Alternatively, to paper over some of these contradictions, the I.N.D.I.A alliance can convert the Lok Sabha polls into an amalgamation of provincial elections. And hope for a redux of the 2004 India Shining moment.

But no two elections can be compared. Since Vajpayee lost power to UPA, India’s polity has changed, qualitatively and otherwise. New fault lines have emerged. Those who can grasp and manage emerging socio-economic contradictions through credible policy interventions are more likely to succeed in the milieu.

On January 14, the day the sun embarks on its journey up north, Rahul Gandhi will kick off the second and final leg of his Bharat Jodo Yatra from Manipur to Mumbai.

Eight days later, Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. In both events, the battle of ideologies is a give-in. In power politics, what matters is the derivative. The rest is merely academic.