Whither Opposition unity?

With the Congress losing one election after another, can the smaller parties take on the BJP in the parliamentary polls in 2024?

The recent assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur have reinforced the perception that the Congress remains the weakest link in the opposition’s fight against the BJP. It was the BJP’s principal opposition in three – Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand – of the five states, but couldn’t even pose a tough challenge to the saffron party in any, let alone unseat it. The Congress had been the main rival of the BJP in 189 of the 303 constituencies, where the saffron party’s candidates had won in the parliamentary elections in 2019. The BJP had won in 90% of the constituencies where it had to face the Congress.

Therefore, for the BJP to be ousted from power in 2024, the Congress needs to give it a tougher fight in 170-odd constituencies in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Assam and Maharashtra.

It’s not that the burden to defeat the BJP is only on the Congress’ drooping shoulders. The regional parties too can debilitate the BJP. Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and their allies did precisely that in UP and Bihar in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. It paved the way for the Congress-led UPA to form the government at the Centre. Akhilesh Yadav, who led SP to improved performance in the recently concluded polls in UP, can repeat his father’s feat. So can Tejashwi Yadav, who gave the BJP-led alliance a scare in Bihar in the 2020 Assembly polls. Indeed, of the BJP’s winnings against regional players in 2019, the majority came from UP, Bihar, Bengal and Odisha – 105 seats.

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Since then, several regional and smaller parties have beaten the BJP in the assembly polls. Two of these – the Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – aspire to claim the Congress’ space. However, neither has the organisational strength to accomplish this in the next 24-months. While the TMC is limited to West Bengal’s 42 parliamentary constituencies and a few more in the northeastern region, the AAP can at best be a contender in Delhi, Punjab and a few smaller states – altogether accounting for barely two dozen Lok Sabha seats.

Therefore, a BJP defeat in 2024 is not possible without the Congress, the SP and the RJD beating it in the Hindi heartland. But neither is it possible if the opposition parties continue to make crucial Lok Sabha fights into three or multi-cornered contests rather than a one-on-one against the BJP. After his party’s losses in the five states, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said, “If you fight the BJP state-by-state, it will be possible to defeat it”. He said every party needed to adjust, whether Mamata Banerjee or Arvind Kejriwal. “In Bengal, we have to fight BJP with Trinamool in the leadership. In Punjab, we have to fight with the AAP as the leader”.

Record poor

But the Congress record has been poor in this respect. Even as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties, the Congress has demanded and contested seats beyond its mettle. For example, in Bihar in 2020, it contested 70 seats in alliance with the RJD, winning only 19. A regional party leader asked, “Will the Congress agree to leave the field for the Biju Janata Dal, or the Telangana Rashtra Samithi to fight the BJP in Odisha and Telangana, since it has lost its standing as the principal opposition to the BJP there?”

The Congress was unwilling to concede any seat to the TMC or its allies in the Goa polls. It was also reluctant to share a significant number of seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party in the 2018 Madhya Pradesh polls. In 2019, the BJP swept Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats, but the Congress was runner up in five seats. “Would it be able to convince its Delhi state unit to be a junior partner to the AAP in 2024 in Delhi,” asked the leader.

Thus, the Index of Opposition Unity, or IOU, that defeated the all-powerful Congress in the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, may not be easy to achieve in 2024, mainly as leaders of some of the constituents of a putative anti-BJP front, like the TMC’s Mamata Banerjee, have their own prime ministerial ambitions. According to senior journalist Jayanta Ghosal, who recently authored a book on Banerjee’s 2024 plans, “Mamata Beyond 2021”, the West Bengal Chief Minister will be visiting states across India to attend civil society conclaves and similar events, and not political rallies, to increase her acceptability. However, with the BJP winning UP and three other states, its leadership is set to renew its focus on West Bengal, and Banerjee would do well to first protect her home turf. Similarly, Kejriwal would need to be on his toes within his party with Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann set to emerge as a power centre.

The Congress strategists believe this is where their party needs to revive in the 11 assembly polls, or some of them, slated from now to December 2023. The Congress is the principal player in at least five of these states – Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The Congress insiders confirmed on Friday that election strategist Prashant Kishor could help their party in the assembly polls in Gujarat, scheduled to be held by the end of this year.

There is a considerable mismatch between resources and media influence that the BJP has at its disposal versus the Congress.

However, the 2024 fight depends much on whether the Congress can create a national narrative on the issues of galloping inflation, economic mess and joblessness in the run-up to the Gujarat polls and whether it can sustain it for the next 18 months.

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