To take on Modi’s BJP, Nitish Kumar works to get Janata Parivar back but that’s easier said than done

Nitish Kumar is trying to bring together Janata Dal(U), Janata Dal(S), INLD, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, RLD, and others — parties that ruled big states of India for decades.

Earlier this month, when Parliament was in session, Nitish Kumar sent his party president JD(U)’s Lallan Singh to meet former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda in Delhi.

The meeting took place at Gowda’s residence, the message was simple: JD (U) and JD (S), helmed by Gowda, should merge. Even as Lallan Singh was with Gowda, Nitish Kumar spoke to the former PM on the phone, making a pitch for the old Janata Parivar to reunite.

“Though he did not say a categorical yes or no, Deve Gowda’s response was positive,” Lallan Singh said. “But he asked me also to talk to the other groups… To reunite the old JD constituents is (now) part of our agenda—if we are to seriously fight the 2024 battle.”

Nitish had broached the subject with the RJD, his new Bihar ally. In October, the RJD national executive had authorised Lalu Prasad and son Tejashwi to take the decision when required. The INLD in Haryana is also reportedly not averse to the idea of a merger, according to Lallan Singh.

Plan A of Nitish’s mergers and acquisitions strategy is to recreate the old Janata Dal as the pivot of a united opposition. And taking a leaf out of VP Singh’s book, bring regional groups to support it, forming the second tier of unity. Its third tier would bring in the Congress as a supporting party. If this does not work, there is the good old Plan B: bring as many non-BJP regional outfits on a common platform and then reach out to the Congress for support.

Though “talks” are only in a “preliminary stage”, getting the old Janata constituents to get back together is easier said than done. For 2023 isn’t 1988 when VP Singh managed to unite four leading Opposition parties to form the Janata Dal. Then, opinion was rapidly turning against Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, V P Singh had emerged as a clear challenger and there was ground-level pressure for these parties to merge to take on the Congress. This led to VP being installed as PM in 1989, Deve Gowda and IK Gujral as PMs in 1996 and in 1997, at the head of the Janata Dal-led coalitions.

Will the regional chieftains from the old Janata Parivar, who run empires of their own today — Akhilesh Yadav, Lalu Prasad/Tejashwi, Naveen Patnaik, Jayant Chaudhary or Deve Gowda or others – agree to submit to the leadership of another?

Clearly, Deve Gowda didn’t give Lallan Singh a categorical response because Karnataka polls are due in five months where, as of now, the Congress is ahead.

But the BJP is pulling out all stops (like enhancing the reservations for Lingayats and Vokkaligas) to stem anti-incumbency. Should the Assembly turn out to be hung, the JD(S) may not want to foreclose the possibility of HD Kumaraswamy — on a pancharatna yatra in the old Mysuru region to revive its fortunes — being propped up as CM by the BJP, as happened in the past.

On the other hand, if arithmetic allows the Congress to form the government with JD(S) support, Deve Gowda may insist on Mallikarjun Kharge as CM than accept either DK Shivakumar or Siddaramaiah.

Deve Gowda’s JD(S) would hope to be either king or kingmaker. In the interim, it does not want to do anything which may queer its pitch in Karnataka. Clearly, Opposition unity is complicated to bring about in states where both the Congress and regional parties are players.

The 10 state elections in 2023 will set the tempo for 2024. The Congress, if victorious in Karnataka, will get a psychological boost for its larger battle in 2024. Losing Karnataka, which gives the BJP a presence in the South, would make the BJP look like a northern and western entity once again.

The BJP has been growing in Telangana, emerging as the main challenger to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), recently rechristened as Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is giving a national look to his party, essentially to retain his state, where polls are due end 2023. In any case, with the TRS having won 103 of 119 seats (and the BJP only 3) in 2018, the gap is big for BJP to bridge.

With the Congress likely to face an uphill struggle in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh next winter — and it’s not a cakewalk for the party in Madhya Pradesh — 2023 is expected to throw up a mixed bag for the Opposition. That’s unlikely to give it the electoral momentum it could do with for 2024.

How the Congress performs in these states will decide the kind of leverage it has when it sits across the table with the regional parties. The Bharat Jodo yatra may have made Rahul the tallest leader in the Congress again but whether that translates to any electoral gains is an open question.

So, instead of being hung up on who would lead the Opposition into the 2024 battle — an issue unlikely to be settled before the elections — it might make more sense for the parties opposed to the BJP to ensure one-on-one fights in as many Lok Sabha constituencies as possible, so that the anti-BJP vote does not get divided and the BJP tally comes down below 272. Given the hard work needed, on New Year’s Eve, though, for many in the Opposition, that sounds more like a wish than a resolve.

Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 10 Lok Sabha elections.