© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Eleven days before May 26, when the Narendra Modi government completed nine years in office amid much fanfare, another political milestone went largely unnoticed — the 25th anniversary of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Over the last nine years, a powerful BJP, armed with numbers beyond absolute majority, has rendered the NDA, which was formed on May 15, 1998, mostly redundant, leaving many allies insecure and prospective partners wary of joining the platform.
However, with efforts underway in the Opposition ranks to stitch an alliance ahead of the 2024 general elections, there are indications that the BJP is also weighing options to infuse new life into the NDA, which has considerably shrunk in recent years, with parties such as the TDP, JD(U) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaving it. The NDA does not enjoy support of the full Shiv Sena either, with the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction now with the Congress and NCP.
On Sunday, it was PM Modi, whose popular appeal has helped the BJP escape the constraints of coalition politics, who reminded his partymen that no alliance other than the NDA has remained intact for a quarter century.
In 1996, after its government lasted only 13 days, despite bagging 161 seats against the Congress’s 140, it was the NDA that had helped the BJP overcome “political untouchability” that had nudged many non-Congress parties to keep it at arm’s length.
Apart from the Shiv Sena, which tied up with the BJP in 1984, the saffron party had no real allies till 1996, when the Akali Dal, Haryana Vikas Party (HVP) and the Samata Party (now JD-U) agreed to seat-sharing agreements with it.
However, the first real breakthrough in coalition politics for the BJP came after the formation of the NDA in 1998, the year Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed government at the Centre for the second time. That year, the NDA coalition led by the BJP grew with the arrival of the TMC, AIADMK, Shiv Sena and BJD.
In the polls, the BJP won 182 seats, while the NDA collectively won 261. Later, the TDP’s decision to lend outside support to it helped the NDA cross the halfway mark of 272.
The need to broadbase its appeal forced the BJP to keep at bay its ideological commitments on the Ram Mandir, abrogation of Article 370 and implementation of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). Coalition partners, however, agreed with the BJP pledge to ‘exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons’.
As such, the coalition that enabled the BJP to come to power also forced it to dilute its agenda in order to maintain stability and continuance.
Overall, the BJP was ‘‘pulled back to the Indian centre by the logic of coalition politics and the need to meet the test of elections”, noted an academic paper, ‘A Lasting Legacy: The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and India’s Politics’, published in the Journal of Contemporary Asia in 2021.
In 1999, the first NDA government fell after the AIADMK withdrew its support. In the fresh elections, held in the backdrop of the Kargil war, the NDA returned to office, having crossed the halfway mark comfortably in the company of unlikely new partners — the DMK, which is the AIADMK’s arch rival in Tamil Nadu, and Jammu and Kashmir’s National Conference, a development that further cemented the coalition’s growing appeal.
Leading the NDA II government, Vajpayee became the first non-Congress PM to complete a five year term in office. However, by the time his term was nearing its end, the NDA was faced with rumblings within its ranks, chiefly over the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat, which had Narendra Modi as its chief minister.
While the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which had four MPs in the Lok Sabha, quit the NDA immediately after the riots — presumably also over the BJP’s attempts to woo the BSP, a contender for the Dalit vote like the LJP — the NC and the DMK also eventually walked out.
The Vajpayee-led NDA’s gamble of preponing the 2004 polls and running with a narrative of ‘India Shining’ was torpedoed by the Congress-led UPA.
Despite the setback, the NDA continued to have a sizeable footprint in India’s political map, as many states remained under its belt. However, it took the coalition another 10 years to return to office at the Centre.
This time it was with a much-diminished significance as a collective, eclipsed as it was by the towering presence of Modi, and the BJP’s unapologetic avowal of its core ideological promises.
Having won 282 seats alone, the BJP was now the undisputed leader of the NDA, unencumbered by the constant fear of losing key allies that had marked its initial stints in power.
In 2019, the BJP under Modi further increased its dominance, returning to office with 303 seats, further obviating the need for allies.
The Modi years have also coincided with the BJP’s aggressive push to establish itself independently in states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar, leading to old NDA allies such as the TDP, Shiv Sena and JD(U) exiting the alliance. While the Shiv Sena faction led by Shinde later returned to the NDA, the Akali Dal, which had been with the NDA since 1996, quit the coalition in 2021, protesting against the contentious farm laws.
