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Journalism of Courage
Since the 2014 general election, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been more symbol than substance, given the fact that the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoyed a comfortable single-party majority in both 2014 and 2019. In fact, until the formation of the INDIA bloc last year, the BJP lost many of its allies, including its oldest partners, the Shiromani Akali Dal (2020) and the undivided Shiv Sena (2019).
On July 18, 2023, the NDA held a meeting and announced that it contained 28 parties – the INDIA alliance at the time consisted of 18 parties. In the months that followed, it gained new members such as the Telegu Desam Party (TDP), the on-again-off-again ally, Nitish Kumar’s Janta Dal (United) and the TIPRA Motha, but lost some partners like the AIADMK.
The 2024 Lok Sabha election results have brought the salience of the NDA centrestage once more. As of the leads available on the Election Commission website at 7 pm, the NDA has crossed the halfway mark of 272, but the BJP on its own is far from a majority 239 leads and wins. Thus, it will, for the first time in a decade, be reliant on its allies, especially the TDP and the JD(U).
The question is: what will be the pound of flesh they each demand? Here is a brief rundown of the parties BJP will have to bank on to form the government.
The TDP first joined the NDA in 1996. Chandrababu Naidu then was a young leader, known as a pioneer in IT governance. The party suffered greatly after it left the NDA in 2018. It was reduced to just 2 seats in the Telangana Assembly in 2018, and to a mere 23 seats in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly in 2019.
The TDP had also joined the UPA ahead of the 2019 general elections. It rejoined the NDA in February this year and while the BJP has suffered severe losses, the TDP has gained stupendously. It is leading in 134 of 175 seats in Andhra Pradesh. And with leads (or wins) in 16 Lok Sabha seats, Naidu is set to play kingmaker for the first time in nearly two decades.
Reports of frantic calls from INDIA leaders to Naidu are doing the rounds, and the TDP chief may well be able to demand several ministries if it helps the alliance. There are at least two pressing reasons that may keep the party with the NDA.
First, the Congress has yet to regain its lost popularity in Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation of the state, and the split in the party after the death of Y S Reddy. Second, Naidu’s campaign in the state invoked PM Modi and the alliance with the BJP — seemingly going against that mandate may well have a cost in future state and national politics.
A favourite pastime of analysts is to write Nitish Kumar’s political obituary, given his constant political promiscuity. Once seen as a potential Opposition PM candidate, Nitish squandered his standing with constant flip-flops. Nitish had been a stalwart of the NDA under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, serving as Union Railway Minister in his cabinet. In the run-up to the 2014 general election, however, things began to sour. Nitish hotly contested the elevation of Narendra Modi candidate to PM, for his lack of secular credentials, and left the NDA in 2013. His image as “sushasan babu”, coupled with the importance of Bihar meant that many projected him as a possible Opposition PM candidate.
This perception was only strengthened after the 2015 Bihar Assembly election in which the Mahagathbandhan — an alliance consisting of the Congress, RJD, JD(U) and Left parties — trounced the BJP. Unfortunately, this was not the last of his volte faces. Nitish broke away from the alliance in 2017, unable to work with his bete noir Lalu Prasad’s party. He then returned to the Mahagathbandhan in 2022, only to leave again to join the NDA in 2024.
The perception was that Nitish had lost all credibility as a result of these switches. But with leads in 12 Lok Sabha seats, he could be kingmaker – and who knows, even the king himself -- once more. The BJP will likely need the JD(U), the third-largest NDA party, to form the government. But given Nitish's record, his support is not likely to make for a stable Centre. And he may leverage his performance to eke out a better deal with INDIA.
Ram Vilas Paswan, founder of the LJP, was known as one of the shrewdest political operators in Indian politics. Almost prophetically, he would switch alliances before polls and end up on the winning side.
After being in the NDA during the Vajpayee era, Ram Vilas rejoined the formation in February 2014, just months before the election and rode two “Modi waves” to a place in the Union cabinet. He was also known to switch loyalties to maximise his party's influence and gains. Now, it remains to be seen how well his son Chirag Paswan can carry on the Late Ram Vilas's legacy.
With leads in 5 Lok Sabha seats, including the bastion of Hajipur, Chirag can claim to be a significant voice representing Bihar’s Dalit population, like his father. As of now, he has professed continuing loyalty to the NDA. That may well change if INDIA is about 5 seats short of a majority, and he can score one or more major cabinet berths — something denied him by the Modi government.
The Shiv Sena was for long a non-Sangh “Hindutva” ally of the BJP. Their alliance began in 1984 and was only substantially broken after the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections. Much like with Sharad Pawar’s NCP last year, the party split down the middle in 2022, with the rebel Eknath Shinde faction eventually being awarded the party symbol and name.
In this election, though, it has leads in 7 seats, compared to the Uddhav Thackery faction’s 9. It could stick with the BJP. However, given the now inevitable churn within the party, many may want to go back with Uddhav Thackery and so, the INDIA group.
In the North and the South, two erstwhile members of the Opposition chose to throw in their lot with the BJP. The Rashtriya Lok Dal in UP and Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka, with leads 2 seats each, might be regretting their decision.
The former did so after its founder-patriarch Charan Singh was given the Bharat Ratna, the latter after some cajoling by the BJP left the Congress alliance. For now, it makes more sense to stick with the NDA and extract what they can. But again, given their now limited influence — they can likely neither make nor break an alliance — both parties might sway the way the wind blows.
