Fresh bid by BJP, Congress to win over allies – panic or desperation?

New Delhi: The bugle for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections seems to have been sounded with both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Congress-led opposition grouping gearing up to discuss the strategy for the upcoming parliamentary polls scheduled to be held in April-May next year.  

While the opposition parties are meeting in Bengaluru on July 17 and 18, the NDA will hold a discussion on the 2024 elections in New Delhi on July 18. 

On one hand, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has sent invites to all the opposition leaders and on the other hand, BJP chief JP Nadda wrote letters to all the allies and even those who had quit the NDA over the past few years.  

Nadda has sent letters to Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma, who heads the National People’s Party (NPP), Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio, who heads the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal (Sonelal), Ramdas Athawale of the Republican Party of India, Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena faction head Eknath Shinde, his deputy and leader of the breakaway Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction Ajit Pawar, Pawan Kalyan of Jana Sena Party (JSP), Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) leader Jitan Ram Manjhi, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) national president Chirag Paswan and his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, who is a union minister and heads the breakaway faction of the Lok Janshakti Party.  

Chirag Paswan had quit the NDA just before the 2020 assembly elections in Bihar and aggressively campaigned against chief minister Nitish Kumar who was then one of the biggest alliance partners of the BJP. Kumar had later alleged that the BJP had tacitly supported Chirag Paswan to electorally hurt his party because of which the Janata Dal (United) came a distant third in the polls. 

When the Lok Janshakti Party split, the BJP preferred Paras over Chirag as the uncle managed to get five Members of Parliament (MPs) to his side.  

However, there is no confirmation yet whether invitation letters have gone to erstwhile NDA partners Shiromani Akali Dal and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP), whose return to the BJP-led grouping was being speculated about for much of the last month. The BJP had also made efforts to win over the Janata Dal (Secular).  

In 2018, Naidu withdrew his support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and later in July brought a no-confidence motion against the BJP government in the Lok Sabha for not granting the special status to Andhra Pradesh and its failure to implement the assurances given to the state in the AP Reorganisation Act. However, the motion was comprehensively defeated on the floor of the House.  

The Akali Dal snapped its 24-year-old alliance with the BJP and pulled out of the Union cabinet following the resignation of Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Later, it withdrew its support to the Modi government over the three agricultural bills which they had initially supported both in and outside Parliament. The two parties separately fought and lost badly in the 2022 Punjab elections.

Soon after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the then Karnataka coalition government led by HD Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) collapsed when some of his party legislators and a few from Congress defected to the BJP.  

All these parties are now keen to bury their hatchets and join the BJP-led alliance.  

There is also no word yet on the invite to Dushyant Chautala of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), a ruling alliance partner of the BJP in Haryana.  

On the opposition front, leaders of at least 24 political parties have confirmed their participation in the second unity meeting to be held at Bengaluru. The first such meeting of 15 opposition parties was held in Patna on June 23. 

Six new parties -- Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Kongu Desa Makkal Katchi (KDMK), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), All India Forward Bloc, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Kerala Congress (Joseph), and Kerala Congress (Mani) -- will join the Bengaluru meeting. 

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s attendance at the conclave will boost her party’s efforts to cobble up a rainbow coalition against the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. 

To ensure the presence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Bengaluru, the Congress publicly announced its opposition to the Centre’s ordinance to take control of the Delhi government’s bureaucracy, a key demand put forth by Arvind Kejriwal to join the grouping.  

The latest outreach by the two camps underscores their desperation to win over as many allies as they could before the grand finale in 2024.

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