In the 2024 National Elections, undeclared Opposition unity president Nitish Kumar plans to overthrow PM Modi. He is a major Opposition unity advocate and has launched a campaign to challenge Modi.
Since rivals fight for power and can’t share it, a grouping controlling the Treasury Benches for too long drives Opposition unity since its disintegration helped choose the winner. Personal aspirations that disregard politics generally cause third-front posturing. After the ruling party’s secret good news, power-hungry parties reunite.
2024 national elections follow. Nitish Kumar champions Opposition unity. Last year, he deserted the BJP and joined the Opposition’s mahagathbandhan in Bihar to confront PM Modi. The fragmented anti-BJP movement’s prime ministerial contenders disliked the Bihar chief minister.
The JDU leader, who has alternated between being a good governance mascot while in bed with the BJP and a social justice and secularism champion sharing power with the saffron party and his opponents, took on a little compromised duty. He wants most Opposition parties to defeat the BJP in the 2024 national elections.
NITISH FORMULA
Nitish recognizes parties can’t reconcile ideological and practical gaps. A segment of the Congress doesn’t want to aid Delhi’s ruling AAP in its battle with the Centre over who would supervise bureaucrats assigned to the elected government. Nitish advises tolerating disparities to find a formula.
The formula? Unpack it. In 2019, the BJP scored 38%. NDA-BJP had 45%. This suggests PM Modi’s party didn’t earn 62 percent (55 percent if we’re talking NDA, albeit others like the Shiromani Akali Dal have left) of the votes four years ago.
Nitish wants a united Opposition. He would learn not all 2019 non-BJP votes were anti-BJP. Some could have voted saffron.
Nitish may invite several Opposition heavyweights, including Congress MPs, to Patna on June 12 to strengthen the anti-BJP vote. His broad coalition (mahagathbandhan) trials inspired him.
He advises anti-BJP parties to back the strongest Opposition candidate in 2024. One-on-one contests like 1977 and 1989 might drop the BJP’s tally to 100. Is location enough? In 1977 and 1989, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi lost. No Bofors-like crises exist now. JP, who launched his Total Revolution in Patna, and VP Singh are absent from the Opposition.
Nitish and other Opposition leaders want to exploit the BJP’s vulnerabilities in Bihar and Maharashtra, where it lost allies. The BJP campaigned in such regions in early 2024 to make up for losses, but some Lok Sabha candidates, now outside the NDA, had won on the Modi wave.
However, there are teething issues: who would identify the candidates most likely to defeat BJP adversaries on so many seats? The Samajwadi Party may be confident in its Uttar Pradesh nominee, but the Congress may think only a huge old party face can win. Sound bites suggest the TMC may back the Congress in Karnataka but not in West Bengal beyond Murshidabad.
Nitish thinks the Congress, which fought 421 seats in 2019 and won 52, may compete fewer seats in 2024 and win many more MPs. After winning Karnataka, would the grand old party continue this formula? The Congress wants to return to strength, if not glory, after Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra gave the south a rare election victory. It thinks it can get more seat-sharing.
Mamata is often accused of destroying Congress. After the BJP was expelled from south Vindhyas, calls for it to lead have increased. AAP chief ministers in Delhi and Punjab are unlikely to provide Congress Lok Sabha seats. In the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP is weaker, Kejriwal’s party has petitioned Congress for a Bill to legalize the Delhi Ordinance.
If consensus candidates are forced, several parties may revolt. Hindutva is sweeping the BJP, save in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. Leaders shaking hands have state parties fighting. KCR, another anti-BJP candidate for the top position, was absent from the Congress’s Bengaluru victory party.
If they combine, most parties can beat the BJP mathematically. Politics differs. Lok Sabha and state elections use Uttar Pradesh. The “Who will be PM face” question remains after the Congress won Karnataka from the BJP and Rahul Gandhi returned to politics.
BJP opposition has disintegrated recently. Eight Opposition parties, including Manish Sisodia’s AAP, wrote to PM Modi to protest the “misuse of central agencies such as the CBI and the ED against its political rivals,” omitting the Congress, after his March imprisonment. A JPC probe into the Adani-Hindenburg issue split the Opposition. Congress leaders marched to the ED office over Adani-Hindenburg, but not together.
Since then, Nitish and others like West Bengal CM and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee, another prime ministerial hopeful, have tried to unite, but they have failed.
20 Opposition parties skipped PM Modi’s Sunday Parliament building inauguration. Five non-BJP parties sent 100 MPs. HD Deve Gowda, whose son HD Kumaraswamy ruled Karnataka for 14 months with Congress support, attended. Kumaraswamy’s 2018 swearing-in demonstrated Opposition unity.
However, Odisha’s BJD and Andhra Pradesh’s YSRCP, known for bailing out the Centre, attended the new Parliament building’s launch.
A cautious Nitish is trying to get the Congress to endorse the AAP’s fight against the Centre’s Ordinance, but the Delhi and Punjab Congress sections have warned the party leadership they won’t. The grand old party calls the AAP the BJP’s B Team for its electoral defeats in Delhi, Punjab, and Gujarat. The AAP celebrated the Gandhis’ National Herald ED targeting.
Nitish’s biggest challenge is getting the Congress and AAP on the Patna dais.
Spectacle confuses formula. If major Opposition parties combine, BJP will call it opportunistic and unethical. Kejriwal’s foes are now allies.
