Rajesh Sinha
It is still too early to say with any degree of certainty about how well or badly the political front of parties opposed to BJP, called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will perform in the forthcoming elections to the 18th Lok Sabha.
In many ways, this putative alliance can, at best, be called a “work in progress”. It has faced, and will face, several hurdles and stumbling blocks since the announcement of its formation. The most serious blow came when the leader who played a key role in bringing together different political parties under this front, Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal – United (JDU) chief Nitish Kumar, himself quit and joined the very party he was cobbling together an alliance against.
There have been other setbacks, engineered and timed by the BJP along the route of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra” (BJNY). This intent to create hurdles became clear even before Nitish Kumar’s defection when BJNY was not allowed to pass through places and routes it had planned and informed the Assam Government about. In Bengal, chief minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee declared her party would not join the alliance for the Lok Sabha elections. As BJNY entered Bihar, Nitish defected (again) back to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
An attempt was made on Jharkhand chief minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) went after him. He didn’t yield, was arrested and is in jail.
This defiance bucked the trend and affected the narrative the BJP was trying to build. It apparently decided to go full-scale ahead without bothering about the BJNY route and its timing. The first move was with western Uttar Pradesh in mind. Farmers’ unions had served notice to the Narendra Modi Government, warning it of reviving their movement if the promises made to them over two years ago were not kept. Modi promptly announced the country’s topmost civilian award of Bharat Ratna to MS Swaminathan, who had done laudable work for the cause of farmers, and to Jat farmers’ leader Charan Singh, the grandfather of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Choudhary and Jat leader of sorts.
Jayant Choudhary, like his father Ajit Singh, promptly abandoned his alliance/understanding with Samajwadi Party and went over to BJP’s side, saying Modi had won his heart. The farmers, however, weren’t won over. Their agitation is on.
Looking elsewhere, BJP made its move in Maharashtra, roping in former Congress chief minister Ashok Chavan. There was also talk of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath switching to BJP but, unfortunately, it hasn’t happened yet.
In fact, the scenario seems to be changing. In contrast to the predictions of doom for the INDIA political front, things are not exactly working out the way they are being projected in mainstream media.
The INDIA front has shown some signs of “life” recently. The Congress-Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) seat-sharing deal for four states is a case in point. While AAP conceded three seats to the Congress in Delhi, it wrangled two in Gujarat and one each in Goa and Haryana.
The Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) have also struck a deal on seat sharing, and INDIA is in play in Uttar Pradesh. The SP’s motive was probably to protect its vote base among Muslims, who are consolidating behind the Congress which they see as the only party that is in a position to counter the BJP at the national level. And the Congress, whose party organisations is in tatters in Uttar Pradesh, needs the SP’s backing. Hence, this coming together is of course a marriage of convenience, as all political alliances are, but it has the potential of denting BJP’s prospects in the state. It had won 62 (64 for NDA) of the 80 seats, down nine seats from 2014. This was despite the fervour of the Pulwama attack-Balakot strike. The political climate this time is not so favourable either, the Ram Mandir hype notwithstanding.
Similarly, ground reports and public response to INDIA in Bihar (Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), or Rahul Gandhi-Tejasvi Yadav) Bihar and in Jharkhand (Congress-JMM) show they are in a position to put up a good fight. It is not likely to be a one-sided contest as in 2019 when BJP-led NDA won 39 of the 40 seats in Bihar (BJP 17, JDU 16, and Lok Janshakti Party 6) and 12 of the 14 in Jharkhand.
Its prospects are unlikely to improve much in other states where it holds sway: in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi, it won all the Lok Sabha seats – 26, 25, 10, and 7, respectively. It cannot improve on this and can only lose, if anything.
The situation is not very different in its other strongholds. In Madhya Pradesh, it won 28 out of 29 seats; in Karnataka, it won 25 out of 28; in Jharkhand, 12 out of 14; and in Chhattisgarh, 9 out of 11. In Maharashtra, BJP-led NDA – it was in alliance with Shiv Sena – won 41 of 48 seats (BJP 23, Shiv Sena 18). That is a total of 266 seats out of 318 (leaving out the Shiv Sena tally). One cannot say how things go this time.
At the same time, there are other developments unfavourable to the ruling party. While it tries to project the farmers’ protest as that of only some rich farmers of Punjab, funded by foreign or anti-India elements, the demands and the cause find resonance among farmers across the country.
The systematic targeting of minorities by BJP has forced them to look for some party or front that can give them some succour, and the INDIA front holds out hope for them. The call for caste census and promising participation in power to the unempowered – the Dalits (including tribals) and the extremely backward classes – has found a positive response, but its impact in terms of vote is yet to be seen.
Added to these are frustrations over unemployment, loss of jobs, long-pending unfilled vacancies, and rising costs. A large section of youth who hoped to get employment in military service is upset about the Agniveer scheme as well.
What is significant is that when the Modi-led BJP came to power in 2014 and again in 2019, it was on issues of corruption and incompetence and then on national pride and military action. This time, the issues are centred on matters directly affecting people’s lives.
Coming on top of all this, the two recent Supreme Court rulings have shown the Modi Government in an extremely poor light. The Electoral Bonds scheme, which was so dear to it that it adopted a questionable procedure – still to be examined by the court – to bring it in, was pronounced unconstitutional unanimously by a Constitution bench. Then, the Supreme Court order in the mayor’s election in Chandigarh, a Union territory under Central rule, case was an embarrassment few could live down. But for the BJP of today, that may not matter at all.
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