The BJP and the INDI Alliance have been trying to make inroads into each other’s strongholds. The BJP is presently succeeding to the extent that the components of the alliance are having to fall back and protect their particular territories. This has required abandonment of seat sharing commitments with others, particularly the Congress. This is being perceived as an unravelling of the alliance, though the possibility still remains of the parties coming together after the elections to form a coalition, if the NDA fails to get a majority.
Opposition leaders are jumping ship in a big way and, after Nitish Kumar in Bihar, former Maharashtra CM and MP Ashok Chavan quit the Congress on Monday and is expected to join the BJP. On the same day, a prominent leader of the National Conference, former MLA Shahnaz Ganai, joined the BJP in J&K, indicating that the tremors are being felt in that part of the country as well. There are indications that even the TDP and SAD might be considering a reconciliation.
The primary reason for this is the poor show the Congress is expected to put up in the areas it is in a direct fight with the BJP. The results of the recent assembly elections bear this out. Since the alliance was based on the presumption that the Congress would lead the fight, its fading fortunes do not encourage the others to take on the BJP (and the ED).
Prime Minister Modi, as usual, has laid down an ambitious target of 400 seats for the NDA in the coming elections. The opposition spokespersons have been psyched into challenging this number, when they should actually have been questioning whether it would even get a majority. The signal sent to the voter is that it is only the margin of the victory that is to be discussed. This is the kind of trap that the Congress has consistently fallen into, mostly because it has not had an alternative vision and narrative. It remains the same old harking back to the Nehru and Indira era, the outdated economic model, and what is described as ‘appeasement culture’. There was hope for some time that exploiting caste divides would pay some dividend, but that is not a sustainable all India model and is best left to regional outfits. What hope remained has been overwhelmed by the Ram Temple wave. Thankfully for Indian democracy, there will still be an opposition as the BJP has yet to break through some bastions of the South. But that provides no solace to the Congress.
