India’s opposition parties are holding one of the biggest meetings in a decade to discuss strategies to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in elections less than a year away. Deciding who will lead the group is a major hurdle.
(Bloomberg) — India’s opposition parties are holding one of the biggest meetings in a decade to discuss strategies to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in elections less than a year away. Deciding who will lead the group is a major hurdle.
The main federal opposition party Congress along with regional political groups and the communists will hold a meeting in eastern Bihar state to decide on how to take on Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of national elections next summer. The BJP has won back-to-back elections and a slew of state elections.
This is one of the biggest meetings since Modi first came to power in 2014 with close to 20 parties attending Friday’s talks.
Political alliances are becoming increasingly crucial for these opposition parties who cannot afford to take Modi and the BJP just on the campaign machinery alone. However, ideological differences and a strong regional focus by some of these parties have stood often in the way of unity, leading to election losses.
“All parties working to save the constitution are on the same page on many issues,” said Derek O’Brien, a leader of the one of the opposition parties Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. “For now, we have a date, a venue and an agreement that the head of every party will attend the meeting. Beyond this, it is not advisable for anyone to jump the gun and speculate.”
The Congress party is looking to build a momentum ahead of national elections next year after a rare victory in the southern state of Karnataka in May. The election result signals high inflation and unemployment could still pose a risk to Modi in the coming state polls at the end of the year and national vote next year.
“The Congress party will do very well in the next election. I think it will surprise people,” its leader Rahul Gandhi said earlier this month at the the National Press Club in Washington. “If you just do the math, a united opposition will defeat the BJP on its own.”
The political arithmetic could work in their favor. Non-BJP parties rule about half of India’s 30 states, particularly in the eastern and southern states where the BJP doesn’t have much of a foothold, and they secured more than 55% of the national vote in the 2019 elections.
Modi’s popularity remains strong, though his rival Gandhi is gaining ground, according to a recent survey. About 43% of the respondents said a BJP-led coalition would return Modi to power for a third term, while 29% said Gandhi’s Congress party would win.
The BJP has taken a dig at the opposition’s attempts at unity. “Simply opposing Prime Minister Modi or the BJP cannot be the basis of an alternative political front,” said Nalin Kohli, a spokesperson for the BJP. “At the very least, they will need to inform the electorate as to what is their vision and who is to be the leader of the front?”
The Congress party, which used to demand the upper hand in alliances in the past, faces competition from other regional groups as it got soundly beaten at the ballot box in two national elections by BJP’s Hindu nationalist push and Modi’s personal charisma.
Some regional leaders have their own aspirations to lead the opposition nationwide though none have been made public and there have been times when political groups do little to support Congress in the states where it is the BJP’s sole adversary.
If the BJP doesn’t get a simple majority in 2024, it can play the same game and forge alliances with regional parties to eventually beat Congress. “Electoral alliances in India are always fluid,” said Gilles Verniers, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, a think tank in New Delhi. “Nothing prevents the BJP to negotiate with a few opposition parties should they fall short of a majority.”
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