Rahul Gandhi has proposed that the latest opposition attempt at unity be named I.N.D.I.A. (Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance), instead of the UPA. His tutors seem to have taken inspiration from PM Modi’s penchant for acronyms. How legal that would be still needs to be considered, but the move can be easily countered by renaming the NDA, BHARAT. That would make the ideological distinction between the two groupings even more distinct.
Such superficiality apart, the 26 parties whose leaders gathered in Bengaluru to prepare the challenge for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are quite aware of the difficulties that await them. It is not clear mathematics as Akhilesh Yadav suggests – that the BJP received thirty-three percent of the vote in the last election, hence, two-thirds of the votes are with them. It has also to do with the compatibility of each party’s support base with that of the others. It is not necessary that the Congress supporter would vote for an SP candidate in UP. Her second preference on not having a Congress candidate could very probably be the one from the BJP. This has been proven in the past, particularly when the SP and BSP tried to come together.
Another primary factor why the opposition feels it needs to put up single candidates against the BJP is to prevent division of Muslim votes, which are crucial to clinching victory. It has been pointed out by numerous experts that conceding political space for this reason by any party would be nothing short of suicidal. Ideally, the Congress should be going it alone in every constituency in UP to assert its position as a significant national party. It may lose, but it will gain the people’s respect. This is particularly so as the prime beneficiary of its abstention would be the SP, which has no votes to provide in other states in exchange. What sense does that make?
Continuing with the efforts at an ‘alliance’ only substantiates the BJP’s charge that most leaders of the opposition parties are not interested in long term political objectives and seek only to avoid the possible jail terms that a return of the NDA would bring for them.
Perhaps, the opposition should focus more on harvesting the natural anti-incumbency even the best governments develop over a period of time (with the rare exception) and join forces later. In which case, it would be easier also to select a prime ministerial candidate, as has happened in the past.
