By Nitya Chakraborty
In politics, even a week is not a long time. Only a few days back, the BJP leadership was upbeat at the fate of opposition unity against its all powerful Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the breakdown of the Congress-BSP alliances in the coming state assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, but suddenly things have changed and a new mood of opposition unity has sprung up after the significant discussions on Thursday between the Congress President Rahul Gandhi and the Telugu Desam Party supremo and the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr. Chandrababu Naidu. The most important message from this meeting is that forget the past, talk on the present and work for future.
Both the Congress and TDP leaderships have agreed to form a front forgetting their long standing rivalry in the state and have promised to talk to the other opposition parties to build a broad anti-BJP front to remove the Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the seat of power in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.The state assembly elections will be over next month and the opposition parties will be knowing their respective strengths in the states where they fought against each other. Fortunately for the opposition, in Telangana, the four parties – Congress, TDP, TJS and the CPI are trying to build a front to fight the TRS in the assembly elections on December 7. TRS is a potential ally of the BJP and it is necessary for the combined opposition to weaken it before the Lok Sabha elections.
There are now 17 parties of the opposition who can be members of the anti-BJP front for the Lok Sabha elections. They have differences at the state level, so it will be wiser for the leadership to focus only on the imperatives of the Lok Sabha elections and find common ground to fight the saffron forces unitedly to the extent possible. Objectively, out of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha for the 2019 elections, total alliance of the opposition parties can not be expected. It will be better for the opposition parties to work on a viable flexible formula depending on the effective strength of each party in fighting the BJP and its allies. In fact, a total understanding between the opposition in 400 sears against the BJP is fair enough if this can be worked out. The remaining 143 seats can be kept open if there is no unanimity among the opposition parties on seat allocation.
Former BJP leader and central minister Arun Shourie recently said that the opposition parties must pledge to ensure they put up one common candidate against the BJP in every constituency. This is desirable but may not be objectively possible for political logistics in different states. Rather the formula mentioned by the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is far more practical. Congress will be the leader in the states where it is fighting the BJP as the major party. It will be having adjustments with the smaller parties but finally the responsibility will be with the Congress as the leader. But in the states, where the regional parties are the rulers like West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, the regional parties naturally will not leave space to the Congress in the name of anti-BJP alliance and there the figyts between the regional ruling party and the Congress can take place in Lok Sabha poll, but the understanding will be to be a part of anti-BJP alliance in post poll situation.
Even under this two track approach, there is a possibility of a common opposition candidate in about 400 plus seats leaving about 143 seats out of the total of 543 seats. If a total unity of the opposition parties is made possible against the BJP in 400 seats, there is every reason to believe that the opposition should be able to gain more than 272 seats from this 400 figure and the seats from the other 140 seats where triangular fights might take place, will be additional. The opposition need to remember that 31 per cent was the vote share Modi polled at the height of his popularity in 2014 and he is today much less popular and the opposition‘s starting percentage is 69 per cent if they have one common candidate against the BJP.As the 2014 Lok Sabha figures show that Modi became PM after 2014 poll because the BJP won 90 per cent of the seats in the states that contributes 60 per cent of the Lok Sabha strength. If the opposition combines in just three states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra that will be the end of BJP rule.
As of now, the trends show that the BJP might gain a few seats in Odisha and a few more in North East. In Bengal, its number will go up at most by one or two. But taken together these eastern and NE states have 87 MPs whereas the states where the BJP made massive gains in 2014 poll , the loss also will be equally massive. All depends on how the saffron leadership can meet the challenge of the united opposition in the Hindi speaking states. In southern states, apart from Karnataka, the BJP has not much strength in other states. In Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the total number of Lok Sabha seats are 102. In 2014 poll, the BJP won four seats out of which in two seats, it had an alliance with Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh. Now, it might lose those two seats without its alliance with TDP. The BJP will try to get one or two seats in TN but that is not certain yet as the DMK led by Stalin is on upsurge and the AIADMK is so faction ridden that the BJP might not get any electoral advantage even if it aligns with the ruling AIADMK.
If the Lok Sabha elections are held as scheduled, the opposition, especially the Congress has to do two things – first the Party’s election manifesto must reflect the aspirations of the masses, especially the young, unemployed and the farmers and it should form the core of the common minimum programme of the anti-BJP front, and second, the Congress must learn to act as first among the equals among the opposition parties and treat the smaller parties with compassion and dignity so that the anti-BJP front can be sustained on a long term basis.
Apart from Rahul, the front leadership should be equally shared by Mamata, Stalin, Akhilesh and Mayawati. Mamata has to play a major role in negotiating with the regional parties, even those belonging to NDA now for support in the post poll situation if the developments demand so. Sitaram Yechury and Sudhakar Reddy of the Left are always available to the anti-BJP front to properly advise in terms of the content of the CMP. The opposition has adequate set of leaders who can act as a team in navigating the course of the Front to achieve the ultimate objective of installing a non-BJP government at the centre after 2019 poll. The leaders must have the firm conviction that yes it is possible – “we can do it”. (IPA Service)
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