BJP alters its Coromandel plan as Opposition searches for narrative

In their own ways, Rahul, Nitish and Kejriwal are trying to collectively create a mahaul of anti-incumbency against Modi and his government

With nearly 600 days left from now to April 2024 for elections to the 543 Lok Sabha seats, the game, you must've noticed, is afoot.

On Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi embarked on Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra, Nitish Kumar surveyed the battlefield from Delhi, and Arvind Kejriwal is set to begin 'make India number 1 mission'. The BJP's countermoves have been incisive at both the government and party levels.

The PM launched INS Vikrant with nationalistic fanfare some days back. On Thursday, he will dedicate the redeveloped Central Vista to the nation. Most Indians, says a recent C-Voter survey, are groaning under the weight of the price rise. Still, we can rejoice at India surpassing the UK as the fifth largest economy in the world. "We have surpassed those who ruled us for 250 years in economic growth," the PM said, the scale of India's poverty and increasing disparity notwithstanding.

Also Read — Rahul, Congress leaders embark on 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'

The BJP will mark the PM's birthday on September 17 with fanfare, but is also hosting an OBC conclave in Jodhpur - the home turf of Congress's probable president Ashok Gehlot - on Thursday. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has asked ministers to focus on 144-seats the party lost in 2019. It has triggered speculation that some could be drafted for party work in the coming months.

But look beyond media questions posed to Opposition leaders, particularly Nitish Kumar, about the future prime ministerial face, and a more profound strategy is evident. In their own ways, Rahul Gandhi, Nitish Kumar, and Arvind Kejriwal know the bigger question is not who might be the face, but whether they can collectively create a mahaul, or narrative, of anti-incumbency against Modi and his government.

Kejriwal has hammered the point about poor government schools, forcing the Centre to respond with its PM Schools for Rising India, or PM-Shri, scheme. Kumar has taken to slam not so much the BJP's Hindutva but that little beyond prachar-prasar, or publicity, has been achieved during the last eight years. The issue of price rise and jobless growth could raise its head if the promised economic uptick does not materialise.

Also Read — BJP frames roadmap to 144 Lok Sabha seats in 2024 after ‘weak’ feedback in half of them

By starting the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' from Kanyakumari, it seems Gandhi knows his voice carries more credibility in southern India while letting Kumar and Kejriwal, with much less baggage on corruption and Hindutva, lock horns with the BJP and Modi in northern India. With Sharad Pawar too old to do the heavy lifting, Kumar, who is a decade younger than the Maratha leader, could emerge as the Opposition sootradhar, the stirring spoon it needs.

The BJP leadership has quickly understood this effort. The Pulwama-Balakot episode might have negated the Opposition campaign on farm distress in 2019, but 2024 could be different. The turnaround in Bihar, which has 40-seats, the possibility of a tougher fight on Maharashtra's 48-seats and the precariousness of repeating its performances in Odisha and Bengal have persuaded the BJP to review its strategy. It even dropped former party chief Nitin Gadkari, who had over the past few years projected himself as the moderate face of the party, from the BJP's parliamentary board.

Also Read — Gadkari done and dusted: Who's next?

Interestingly, it isn't the first time the BJP has spoken of unwinnable 150-odd seats. Shah first expanded on the 'Coromandel Coast' plan of winning the party seats in the coastal states of India - Bengal, Odisha, Andhra and Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala - at the BJP's national council meeting in 2015.

But seven years later, desired success has eluded the BJP in these states. The BJP made gains in Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha by winning 18 of 42 seats, but these vanished in the 2021 Assembly polls. Similarly, its efforts in Kerala and Tamil Nadu haven't brought it any electoral success in two Assemblies and one Lok Sabha poll since 2015. It scored a zero in Andhra in 2019 and won four of 17 in Telangana.

The BJP seems keener to consolidate in areas where it is strong - the 144 seats where it stood number two or three in 2019 - rather than struggle with devoting its energies to its Coromandel plan. The effort is to compensate for foreseeable losses in Bihar, Maharashtra. The NDA won 80 of its 353 seats in 2019 from these two states, and the BJP won 40 of its 303.

Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's continuing popularity in Bihar, the caste alliances in the state are such that the BJP can be confident of winning only two of Bihar's 40-seats - that of Patna and Patna Sahib - if the 'grand alliance' of JDU, RJD, Congress and Left parties contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls unitedly. The 2015 Assembly polls in Bihar, held little more than a year after the BJP's sweep in the Lok Sabha, are evidence of this.

Similarly, Maharashtra's 48-seats present a challenge. The BJP and Shiv Sena won 41 seats in 2019, with BJP's share being 23. Would it allow the Eknath Shinde faction of the Sena to contest all of the Sena's seats? Would the MVA pose a more potent threat?

Much, however, would depend on whether the opposition succeeds in building a credible narrative against Modi's leadership and BJP's governance.