This suggestion gained credence after the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit president K Annamalai, a former IPS officer and hands on politician, who during the course of a press conference following a visit to some of the flooded area in Chennai, said the Tamil Nadu chief minister Stalin has no time to attend to woes of flood ravaged Chennai people as he is busy in lobbying how to become Deputy Prime Minister in Delhi. Following his utterances several members of Parliament made no bones in indicating that such coalition is reportedly being worked upon. Ideally the coalition of opposition regional parties, mostly dynastic, wanted Sharad Pawar of NCP to lead it but unfortunately due to his ailment and age, the mantle would fall on Mamata with his blessings and he may extend his wholehearted support to the grand idea.
In the past NDA coalition led by BJP and Congress led UPA coalition gave stable governments for a full Lok Sabha term because they were led by strong national party, which had at least around 150 members of parliament from the main coalition partner. Unfortunately in the present political scenario the opposition parties are not confident of the principal coalition partner, Congress, getting 150 seats on its own despite BJP ceding ground to opposition regional parties in some of the states. With Congress losing ground in every state it had contested elections, barring a few exceptions, the opposition parties fear that congress will be more of a burden than being the leader of the coalition.
Political circles feel that the mood of the people is for a change but they seem to be not very much inclined towards congress as the party’s cadre is a disillusioned lot besides being rudderless. If the disenchantment with BJP grows further, the regional parties could garner more votes in states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Maharashtra, Kerala and perhaps Haryana, Punjab, Goa and North Eastern states. Even in Punjab Akalis may join this coalition as they are in no mood to join the NDA due to trust deficit. In Maharashtra Shiv Sena has already ditched BJP and in North Eastern states many of the regional parties could join any coalition depending upon which side the wind blows as they have no particular ideological moorings. Biju Janata dal is a fence sitter and could join any of the coalition if Odisha gets its due share. Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar too could be part of this coalition. So also Chautala’s party in Haryana and late Ajit Singh’s party in Western Uttar Pradesh.
This sort of broad coalition will work only if these parties do well and manage to get more than 200 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. For that to happen, the opposition coalition of regional parties would have to do extremely well in states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Odisha, besides some success in states like Punjab, Haryana, North Eastern states, Goa. This is going to be a tough ask. In the event Congress does well in states like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand where it is in straight contest with BJP, then the question will arise who will lead the opposition coalition. But the former appears to be more likely.
However Modi-Amit Shah combine is very strong in their electoral strategy and it has entire RSS cadre to work for BJP apart from its own committed cadre. BJP will not leave any stone unturned to expose the opposition as most of the parties are dynastic. This is a major trump card and will be fully exploited. Apart from BJP, AIADMK and left parties are the other two parties which are not dynastic in India. Though BJP has many politicians who are dynasts, but the top leadership has so far avoided this tag just in the case of communist parties. There are so many ifs and buts but how far this grand coalition becomes a reality, only time will tell and the Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to take place in 2024. Before that one had to watch the performance of opposition parties in assembly elections scheduled for 2022 and 2023. (IPA Service)
PRASHANT KISHOR WORKING ON NEW OPPOSITION STRATEGY TO PROJECT MAMATA AS PM
EFFORTS ARE ON TO GET M K STALIN AND AKHILESH IN THE PROPOSED MOVE
K R Sudhaman - 2021-11-20 10:43
There is a buzz in political circles that opposition parties appear to be stitching up a workable coalition to take on BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and informed pundits indicate that TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee is likely to emerge as the Prime ministerial candidate for a non-congress led opposition coalition. This kind of opposition is reportedly being worked upon by political strategist Prashant Kishor after his run-away success in ensuring Mamata won the last West Bengal assembly elections and DMK’s M K Stalin in Tamil Nadu. Earlier Kishore was instrumental in the victory of YSR Congress’ Jagan Moan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, Capt Amrinder Singh in previous 2017 assembly elections and Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi assembly elections. Incidentally Kishore had contributed to Modi’s victory in 2014 as well.