As it is, the June 23 Patna Conclave will have loads of prime ministerial aspirants. The “host”, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, himself has a simmering prime ministerial ambition that goes back nine years. Congress communication head Jairam Ramesh referred to Rahul Gandhi as PM in waiting after the Bharat Jodo Yatra and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is also a long-standing Prime Ministerial wannabe.

Telangana’s K Chandrasekhar Rao, who will be skipping the Patna Conclave, is another “PM face” aspirant, next to AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Fortunately, for the opposition, Pawar spoke for all of them even if the Maharashtra strongman is himself a ‘dark horse’ for the top post. For the time being though, he has declared that the fractious “PM face” issue should not derail the Patna Conclave.

So every party head and prime ministerial aspirant will hold his/her horses. But it will be there, in the back of their minds, the “PM face”, when for the third time in a row, the Opposition will go into a general election without a consensus on a prime ministerial candidate. Is that advantage Narendra Modi all over again? A case can be made for Modi that he is sole “PM Face” of general elections 2024 as he was in 2014 and 2019.

The opposition parties are without that advantage. The Patna Conclave will be avoiding a showdown on the issue. But there is no face for the voter to connect with and/or confront. Voters do not vote for an alliance/combined Opposition. They vote for this and that party or this and that candidate. Definitely more so in recent Indian electoral history. Starting from 2014, like it or not, it’s been presidential!

Twice, the Opposition struck forth without a “PM face” and twice Narendra Modi took the advantage all the way to the PMO. This will be the third time the Opposition could lose despite having an overall advantage over Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a number of reasons including a resurgent Congress under the leadership of a disqualified Member of Parliament.

The Combined Opposition should admit at the Patna Conclave that whatever the consensus the conclave arrives at, the 2024 general elections will be a direct confrontation between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi. As the weeks pile up, it will be direct to-and-fro between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi, primarily because RaGa is the closest to a “PM face” that the combined Opposition can declare and hope to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

So, top opposition leaders will mount the Patna stage with the preapproved condition that none of them will squabble over “Who will be PM face of the Opposition?”, but will shifting the inevitable not be a twice proven disadvantage when faced with Modi the invincible? Minus a clear and present “PM face”, the Opposition will be giving the floor away to Narendra Modi, who revels in an “I, me, myself” setting, once more.

Whether or not the opposition parties unite at the Patna Conclave, the BJP and Modi will make general elections 2024 a direct contest between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the disqualified MP. The rest of the opposition parties and their party heads will be edged out of contention without them even realizing that they never stood a chance to be “PM face” in the first place. The “people of India” do not look at regional party heads as prime ministerial material. None of the regional satraps stand a chance against Modi. And people this time will be voting to install a Prime Minister. And minus a rival, Modi has got for himself the mantle and aura of a sole all-India leader. If somebody comes closest to him, it has to be a Congress leader, whether qualified or disqualified, does not matter.

Sharad Pawar’s realization that “PM face” will splinter the opposition even before unity is achieved at Patna says much about what will be if and when the opposition succeeds in ousting Narendra Modi. This time, more than in 2014 and 2019, there should be a “PM face” to rival Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Maybe not for the opposition parties as a whole, but for the electorate who will be voting for a suitable PM to rival an entrenched PM!

The Patna Conclave will try to pit a joint opposition candidate in every Lok Sabha seat though it is a farfetched likelihood, something which will tantamount to ceding space to the Congress in most states. The opposition parties can overcome this problem by deciding on a joint “PM face”. Unity on a common opposition prime ministerial face will be perhaps the only reason why the electorate may not vote Modi. At the end of the day, it is about what is to be done with Narendra Modi? (IPA Service)