The Mirage of Opposition Unity

Can a united opposition pose a combined challenge to the leadership of Narendra Modi and the BJP-led NDA in 2024? This is a question that comes up often among political commentators and analysts. A casual look at the emerging scene, reveals the likely political picture with some clarity. The Congress with some states in its control such as Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, and others, where it is in power in a coalition like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, feels that it is only natural for it to be leading the Opposition charge against a powerful BJP led by the formidable Modi-Shah duo. The grand-old party also feels that with some measure of success that the Bharat Jodo Yatra received in various parts of the country, Rahul Gandhi can be pitted successfully against Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an alternative leader. In a subtle dig at the Congress party’s intentions to project Rahul Gandhi as a challenger to Narendra Modi, the Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, said that it would make the BJP’s job easier to have Rahul Gandhi or Arvind Kejriwal as their main challenger, in terms of leadership to Prime Minister, Modi. The Congress finds backers in Sharad Pawar and his party, NCP, as also Lalu Yadav’s RJD. However, others like AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal, SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao or KCR of the BRS, and Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress chief, consider themselves to be leaders in their own right. The BSP supremo, Mayawati, no longer has the political clout she once did while the BJD and YSRCP have refused to be corralled into the opposition camp and have an independent approach, as they see it. Parties like the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) are outfits with little influence outside their own small pockets, the former in certain areas of Punjab and the latter mainly in Hyderabad. Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal-United (JDU) has already announced that he is not a contender for Prime Ministership. In saying so, he also seemed to have revealed that his party does not have the required traction to make such a claim and he pragmatically withdrew his hat from the prime ministerial ring. KCR has decided to go national and has renamed Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) as Bharatiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS) threatening to dislodge Prime Minister Modi and the BJP at the Centre in a volley of statements. However, it is only when elections get closer that we will see the actual picture in terms of electoral alliances on a national scale with his political outfit. The only state where BRS might succeed in getting a few seats with a likely pre-poll alliance is with Kumaraswamy Gowda’s JDS in Karnataka. Of course, that depends on how much ground JDS is prepared to yield in the southern state to BRS and KCR. Elsewhere in the country, despite his tall claims, KCR’s outfit appears to have no takers. The likes of Rakesh Tikait are a spent force even if KCR assumes that farmers’ unions would back him. All in all, the idea of opposition unity to take on the BJP appears to be a bit of a pipe dream with the opposition camp in complete disarray. As of now, Narendra Modi stands tall on the national stage with no political adversary of similar standing in sight.