Amidst “informed guesses” that the coming parliamentary election will be easy for the BJP, one would have expected spirited efforts by the Opposition to mobilise the electorate and corner the ruling party on key developments such as the Supreme Court ruling on electoral bonds or the farmers’ agitation. Instead, what we witness is an aggressive BJP poaching the Opposition, in north and south, and openly waging a war against farmers.
This stark asymmetry between the approaches of the ruling party and the Opposition cannot be understood merely in the framework of anti-democratic manoeuvres of the ruling party — they are a given in a polity that tilts towards upholding sub-democratic politics as democracy. This asymmetry also needs to be understood in the context of the political failure of the Opposition. A very different, more mature and silent coalition-making would be needed for such a change.
The coalition that smartly christened itself as INDIA and momentarily upset the BJP by its naming game, has been on the verge of collapse even before elections are announced. One of its founders, the JD(U), has crossed over to the BJP yet again while others are busy cutting Congress to size. Any political party would naturally want to retain its base and expand it territorially. Therefore, seat sharing was bound to be a stumbling block in the way of an Opposition alliance. But the central political failure has been not to understand the long-term threat to their existence — in the process, ensuring a loss in the short term as well. This political failure is a common trait of Congress and its INDIA partners.
As for Congress, even after a decade of decimation, it still houses enough self-seekers who do not mind joining the BJP. In a party system dominated disproportionately by one player, this is not surprising. What should nevertheless surprise us is the helplessness of Congress in not bringing in enough fresh blood during the past decade and allowing the dead wood to masquerade as its assets. Without consolidating itself internally, the party went on to waste its energies on building the Opposition alliance.
Congress and its allies forget that it is not enough for them to individually bag more seats but they also need to ensure that the strength of the BJP is reduced. For that to happen, there are two preconditions. One, that they do not aspire at this moment to expand at each other’s cost and that they keep the BJP in check in their respective areas of strength. In this, Congress seems to be the weak link.
A casual look at the outcome of the 2019 elections is instructive: There are a little less than 150 Lok Sabha seats where Congress continues to be the main challenger to the BJP. This includes the central-northern-western states of MP, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, HP, Rajasthan and Gujarat; it also includes Assam in the east and Karnataka (and Goa) in the south. Over time, smaller players are emerging in some of these states; the BSP and AAP have been trying to expand in some; but the bulk of the responsibility to halt the BJP will have to be with Congress in these states.
The nominal existence of most other parties means that the coalition game has a marginal relevance here. The crucial question is whether Congress will improve its own performance. The results of 2019 are dismal from this point of view — out of the 144 seats here, Congress could win only a paltry eight. The reason lies in the huge surge in favour of the BJP. Although Congress was the “challenger” in these states, except in Assam, it trailed the BJP by 10 percentage points at best (Chhattisgarh and Goa) to more than 30 per cent at worst (Gujarat, Himachal, Uttarakhand). So, one would have expected that in the past five years, Congress made an all-out effort to expand in states where it continues to matter but is being driven into a corner. To its credit, it has wrested back Himachal Pradesh. It has won Karnataka, but without reducing the vote share of the BJP. Its losses in the recently held Assembly elections in MP and Chhattisgarh do not inspire the confidence that it would bounce back.
The inability of Congress to challenge the BJP in these more or less bipolar states invites new players to stake their claims. This poses a tough dilemma for the anti-BJP coalition. On the one hand, Congress would want a field clear of any other contestants so that it can hope to garner anti-BJP votes. But on the other hand, smaller parties in the coalition may believe that they have a better chance in some pockets and would want Congress to be magnanimous.
Among the other states where Congress continued to have a sizeable presence till very recently, it has regained a foothold in Telangana. It is not clear whether it has organisationally rejuvenated itself sufficiently in Andhra Pradesh.
In Maharashtra, the overall fragmentation of the polity apart, Congress has not taken advantage of the chaos. So, looking at the political battlegrounds, Congress continues to be a poor challenger where at the moment it is the only party that can take on the BJP. Instead, Congress keeps fighting the TMC in West Bengal over the latter’s arrogance, keeps cribbing against the SP in UP where it ceded ground in the late ’80s that it is still to regain even partially. At the same time, it is a moot question if state-level players will be able to halt the BJP without any help from friendly parties.
This is not to say that these parties’ concerns about their self-interest and expansion are not genuine. They will need to balance those interests with the need to work with each other. Right now, their expansion hinges on their ability to preserve themselves and their self-preservation is dependent on preservation of a minimal democratic framework — robust institutions and respect for rule of law are those basic pillars. Those opposed to the BJP must understand that these two conditions alone will allow them to function freely but they must respect these conditions themselves.
Today, in India’s most severe democratic crisis, electoral defeats won’t count as political failure of the Opposition, but ignoring the tension between their larger ambition to expand and the responsibility to preserve democracy will surely be counted as a signal political failure.
The writer, based at Pune, taught political science
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Ahead of elections, its failure to understand long-term threat to its existence ensures a loss in short term as well
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26.02.2024
Amidst “informed guesses” that the coming parliamentary election will be easy for the BJP, one would have expected spirited efforts by the Opposition to mobilise the electorate and corner the ruling party on key developments such as the Supreme Court ruling on electoral bonds or the farmers’ agitation. Instead, what we witness is an aggressive BJP poaching the Opposition, in north and south, and openly waging a war against farmers.
This stark asymmetry between the approaches of the ruling party and the Opposition cannot be understood merely in the framework of anti-democratic manoeuvres of the ruling party — they are a given in a polity that tilts towards upholding sub-democratic politics as democracy. This asymmetry also needs to be understood in the context of the political failure of the Opposition. A very different, more mature and silent coalition-making would be needed for such a change.
The coalition that smartly christened itself as INDIA and momentarily upset the BJP by its naming game, has been on the verge of collapse even before elections are announced. One of its founders, the JD(U), has crossed over to the BJP yet again while others are busy cutting Congress to size. Any political party would naturally want to retain its base and expand it territorially. Therefore, seat sharing was bound to be a stumbling block in the way of an Opposition alliance. But the central political failure has been not to understand the long-term threat to their existence — in the process, ensuring a loss in the short term as well. This political failure is a common trait of Congress and its INDIA partners.
As for Congress, even after a decade of decimation, it still houses enough self-seekers who do not mind joining the BJP. In a party system dominated disproportionately by........
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