Although the 2024 Lok Sabha election is almost one year away, opposition parties have started confabulations, exploring the possibility of a united front to take on the BJP. While there is absolutely nothing surprising about these efforts, the feasibility of disparate opposition parties - most of them confined to just one state - coming together merits deeper and dispassionate analysis. This is needed not just for the sake of analysis but also for the larger cause of voter education, to facilitate their enlightened decision.
Such analysis brings to the fore at least five key reasons why a pre-election alliance of opposition parties seems both impossible and inadvisable.
These five reasons are as follows:
It starts with leadership. For the opposition to put up a united fight in a direct contest with the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they need a face. After the Bharat Jodo Yatra, apparently Rahul Gandhi and his associates believe that his time has finally come. However, the ground reality is different. His yatra has failed to give any concrete political message. Besides, even within the Congress, the Grand Old Party of India, there is no unanimity on projecting RaGa as PM candidate. More importantly, an inconsistent Rahul Gandhi has so far not displayed any honest political will to take on the BJP resolutely. Besides, a man technically younger to PM Modi seems happy with peddling older agenda points bereft of any imagination and spark.
Like RaGa, the Congress too has its own limitations. Many within the Congress doubt his ability to lead such an alliance. An indecisive Congress believes that it can neither abandon Rahul Gandhi, nor embrace him completely.
A near total lack of enthusiasm in the party for politically exploiting RaGa's disqualification vividly reflected this ambivalence. Add to this the obvious reservations about Rahul Gandhi among leaders like Mamata Banerjee, K Chandrasekhar Rao and, to some extent even Uddhav Thackeray, the process remains stuck.
Second, even if this hypothetical anti-BJP alliance decides to fight without projecting anybody as their leader, the question of their common agenda can't be ignored. Except for "Modi hatao", the anti-BJP front has no substantial agenda. There is no evidence to suggest that the opposition's everyday noise about "Democracy in Danger" resonates with the people.
Besides, Uddhav Thackeray, Mamata Banerjee and KCR have not exactly covered themselves in glory while championing the cause of democracy. How can people forget that Bal Thackeray and Sharad Pawar had either defended or meekly accepted the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, or Mrs Gandhi-the-First.
Opposition parties must understand that PM Modi has in fact strengthened popular confidence in democracy. Pre-2014, people had almost concluded that multi-party democracy in India is a failure, with democratic governance failing to bring about any change in their lives. A 2020 Pew Research survey on Satisfaction with Democracy revealed that while in most other democracies the level of satisfaction about governance is on the decline, in India 70% people are satisfied with democracy here.
Internal contradictions are the third important reason the idea of a united opposition is just a chimaera. From Mamata Banerjee to Sharad Pawar and KCR, most are in fact breakaway groups of the Congress. Their acceptance of the Congress as Big Brother at the national level demands that they sacrifice some seats. Would this really work on the ground? Also, the Congress today is more of a union of regional satraps like Ashok Gehlot, Kamal Nath, Bhupesh Baghel and Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Will the Congress disturb its own internal equations to accommodate new partners?
In Tripura recently, the Congress tried to mend fences with the Left Front. Even this coming together of the two archrivals couldn't convince the electorate and bring about the BJP's defeat. Such opportunist alliances taking shape at the eleventh hour do not work - that is an important lesson to learn.
Alliances work on give-and-take. But given the inertia in the Congress organisation today, the party has precious little to give. It is undeniable that in many non-BJP-ruled states, the Congress has become more of a liability.
The bankruptcy of vision is the fourth reason for the failure of any anti-Modi plank. For most opposition parties, ideology is a thing of the past. They must at least have a vision for the India of the future. For any joint front of parties with diverse ideologies, evolving a common policy approach and a set of alternative development programmes is a must. Sadly, the opposition seems oblivious to this basic requirement.
Nobody knows what fault the opposition has found in PM Gati Shakti? Or Kisan Samman? Or the new National Education Policy? Or Nal-se-Jal? New development programmes to make India a developed country was an agenda long overdue. Opposition parties can't oppose these just for the sake of it.
The policy leadership that PM Modi has given in the last nine years is unparalleled. Even one dozen chief ministers can't help these intellectual Lilliputians compete with a towering Narendra Modi.
The abysmal track-record of governance of opposition parties is the fifth important reason why "Project Defeat Modi/BJP" is bound to fail. The BJP is the only party that has the courage to seek votes on the basis of its performance in governance.
State governments led by the Congress, the regional parties or the Left Front have hardly ever talked about the Politics of Performance. Having tried hard in the last nine years, opposition parties are at their wit's end as they look for loopholes in welfare schemes or programmes. They have also tried to paint the Modi government as elitist.
But on the ground, in election after election, OBCs and other weaker sections are solidly standing behind PM Modi and the BJP. The opposition's attempts to find fault, be it on the economy or law and order, are repeatedly failing. Now, opposition parties have started throwing allegations without taking the trouble to substantiate them.
Modi haters, including opposition parties, fail to understand that the shield of popular confidence, so painstakingly earned by PM Modi, is so strong that even with endless mudslinging, not even a speck of mud sticks to him.
Efforts to cobble any enduring and credible alliance will be stillborn.
True, the coming together of diverse political parties is not new in India. Even the BJP led alliance governments. But both in 1998 and 1999, the BJP was a strong pole around which non-Congress parties rallied. With no such strong pole available today, it is an alliance bereft of any positive, constructive agenda.
Unlike in the past, this khichdi being cooked for 2023-24 remains a mix of adulterated and impure ingredients. No voter would care for a dish that could harm their health.
Vinay Sahasrabuddhe is former MP, Rajya Sabha and columnist, besides being President of Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.