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Journalism of Courage
Even as the promise of the INDIA bloc evaporates, another alliance is taking shape as elections approach. Few saw it coming, for few saw any need for it. However, staying one step ahead of its rivals again, and retaining its edge of surprise, the Narendra Modi-led BJP has managed to stitch three crucial alliances in the past few days, with more on the way.
Modi’s declaration of a 400-plus seat target for the NDA, on the floor of Parliament, no longer seems like a throw-away audacious challenge to rattle the Opposition. Announcing the number, the PM had said the people would not just confine his rivals again to the Opposition benches, but that they may “achieve greater heights and be soon seen only in the public galleries (of the House)”.
Apart from being the face of the BJP electoral campaign, this alliance push also carries Modi’s touch, with the PM putting the past behind to reel in even partners who abused him personally in the past, in service of the larger cause of winning.
The case in point is of JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar, who split from the BJP in 2015 specifically on the ground of Modi being named the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. Though he returned to the NDA later, once he re-exited, he was back to attacking the BJP and Modi. As recently as November, Nitish was slamming the Modi government for being “a one-man show”.
Sources say that Nitish’s latest U-turn towards the BJP came about after Modi took the lead to invite him to join the NDA.
The TDP is another former ally who has returned to the NDA ranks. In April 2019, its supremo Chandrababu Naidu had described Modi as “a hardcore terrorist”. “I have only one request for my brothers from the minority community present here. If you vote for Modi, many problems will arise,” Naidu had said.
Sources say that while BJP leaders brought this up as talks began between the two parties, Modi advised them to let it go in the “larger interest” of the party.
In Odisha, the Modi government has ensured cordial relations with the BJD since it came to power in 2014, and now looks set to turn that into a mutually agreeable tie-up despite the BJP’s own rise in the state.
This is quite a turnaround from March 2009, when Patnaik had snapped his party’s ties with the BJP, after making it the unpalatable offer of 6 of 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Now the BJD is reportedly okay with going up to 14-15 seats, on the condition that it retain an overwhelming upper hand in the Assembly polls.
In Tamil Nadu, the BJP has not yet given up on its former ally AIADMK, and in the meantime, worked out tie-ups with its small, breakaway faction as well as other smaller parties and groups in the state.
BJP sources say that Modi is involved in every little aspect of the poll planning, from ticket distribution to the narrative. This has meant that there has been little to no dissent despite 195 names being announced in the first tranche, with 33 sitting MPs dropped. Two candidates who found themselves in embarrassing rows soon after the lists came out – Pawan Singh, from Asansol, and Upender Singh Rawat from Barabanki – quietly dropped out.
Now look at the INDIA corner. While the Trinamool Congress followed through on its threat and has released names for all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, in Maharashtra, where the Congress alliance predating INDIA was seen as giving the BJP-led alliance a tough fight, the partners are struggling to reach an arrangement. Or to even keep peace, with leaders of the Congress’s partner parties routinely speaking against each other.
In Kerala, where the INDIA alliance is incongruous due to the Congress and Left being the main rivals, CPI(M) Politburo member and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan keeps attacking the Congress. The Left here has more than once asked Rahul Gandhi not to contest from the Wayanad seat he won from last time, with the CPI fielding a strong candidate, Annie Raja, from the seat.
The Opposition-ruled states are technically down just to 10 now – Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh – with the BJP looking to tie up the loose ends with the BJD, and to roping in the Akali Dal in Punjab.
Every such addition solidifies the BJP’s bulwark, even if some worry about the state of democracy in a country with the Opposition thus diminished.
Meanwhile, Modi has not yet hit the high campaign note, though he has made it a point to visit states where the BJP is seen as weak, including West Bengal, the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir, with Andhra Pradesh and Kerala next on his itinerary.
During these visits, the PM has announced projects worth almost Rs 20 lakh crore, and instructed ministries to be ready with “a 100-day programme focusing around “Viksit Bharat”.
