Opposition unity: Is well begun, half done?

Previous experiments with Opposition unity have shown that forming an alliance does not ensure electoral victory by itself. Public perception of the incumbent leader and the govt also has to change

The first meeting for Opposition unity in 2024 was overshadowed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's US visit. However, that does not diminish the importance of 15 Opposition parties agreeing to contest the next general election together. The next meeting will be in Shimla on July 10 or 12. 

To create an effective challenge, some opposition parties want to follow the principle of the dominant party in each state, dictating seat adjustments. But it is uncertain whether this rule will work everywhere. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is a case in point. He tried to force a distance in Patna between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress by demanding unequivocal support against the Centre's ordinance that abrogated his government's power of making bureaucratic appointments. 

Kejriwal's behaviour suggests that his presence at the opposition meeting has no more than symbolic significance. He has wrested space from the Congress in Delhi and in Punjab and can hardly afford seat-sharing with it. Therefore, despite his anti-BJP stance, he may not count for much in Opposition unity. 

Although this is also the dilemma of the Trinamool Congress, its leader Mamata Banerjee has carefully chosen not to front-load Opposition unity efforts with the potential difficulty of accommodating the Congress and the Left parties. In some other big states, the anti-BJP opposition parties have already had the experience of working together.

The two states where the Opposition unity efforts are likely to be critical are Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, accounting for 128 Lok Sabha seats. In Maharashtra, there is already an anti-BJP coalition, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). However, the MVA alliance has never contested an election together. The 2024 general election will test whether they can do so smoothly.
 

On the other hand, even though the BJP facilitated a split in the Shiv Sena to form an alliance government in the state with Eknath Shinde, it is uncertain whether the Shiv Sena's cadres have also shifted loyalties. This may be why the Shinde government is reluctant to hold the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls, which were due in March 2022. 

In Uttar Pradesh, with the BJP holding 62 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats, the Opposition needs a strong alliance. But the big question is whether the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) can come to some understanding as neither an SP-Congress nor BSP-Congress alliance will amount to much. The Patna meeting has demonstrated no new thinking on Maharashtra and UP. 

Previous experiments with Opposition unity have shown that forming an alliance does not ensure electoral victory by itself. Public perception of the incumbent leader and the government also has to change. In 1971, the pre-poll alliance against Indira Gandhi-led Congress (R) comprised the Congress (O), Samyukta Socialist Party, Praja Socialist Party, the Swatantra Party, Bharatiya Jan Sangh and other smaller parties. Yet it came a cropper despite fielding a common candidate against Gandhi's party. 

However, after the Emergency, in 1977, the Janata Alliance (later, the Janata Party) of Congress(O), Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Bharatiya Lok Dal and Praja Socialist Party delivered a stunning defeat to the Congress. In 1989, Rajiv Gandhi, despite his landslide majority of over 400 seats, was defeated by a ragtag coalition of the Janata Dal and the Left parties, with the BJP's support. 

In all these cases, a united Opposition was able to defeat the incumbent government only when the leader or the ruling government was perceived as anti-democratic, arrogant, inept or corrupt. It was only then that Opposition unity became an instrument to channel public anger for political change.

In terms of popularity and credibility, even the BJP suspects the electorate may not be as enthusiastic today about Prime Minister Modi as it was in 2014. It will be difficult for the party to create the same euphoria about him that the "Gujarat development model" did in 2014 or his "strongman" image did after he retaliated against Pakistan post the Pulwama terrorist attack in 2019. Despite an expanded social base, the charisma of the BJP's supreme leader may well have diminished.

The hype surrounding Prime Minister Modi's foreign visits suggests that he is aware of the need to refurbish his image. International acceptance has become an acute need in the wake of the adverse publicity he received globally after the BBC documentary on the Gujarat riots. However, his visits to the US, Egypt and later, France are meant to improve bilateral ties and embellish his image at home – hoping that by seeing him feted across the world, voters will ignore warts on his governance record. Similar efforts will instrumentalise India's rotational presidency of the G-20 to enhance its image at home. 

Nevertheless, the BJP is assiduously working on a Plan B. It is refurbishing the defunct National Democratic Alliance by attracting its estranged allies. In Bihar, the party is wooing the two legatee parties of Ramvilas Paswan (the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party), Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Janata Party, Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustan Awam Morcha; in Jharkhand, the All Jharkhand Students' Union; in Punjab the Shiromani Akali Dal; in UP Anupriya Patel's Apana Dal is already with the BJP and the party is softening towards Om Prakash Rajbhar's Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party; in Karnataka, overtures are being made to H D Devegowda's Janata Dal (Secular); in Andhra to the Telugu Desam Party and Pawan Kalyan's Jan Sena. Clearly, the BJP feels that the 2024 election results may require the cushion of its allies.

These developments suggest that the 2024 outcome is not a closed chapter. There is a ray of hope for the Opposition as the law of diminishing returns sets in for the BJP. That is why the Opposition's unity efforts are important, even though it is early days yet to see how they take shape on the ground.

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