Blow the trumpet! | leader

Discussions and preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections have been going on for the last six months. In another ten months, the actual polling may be over. Two months before that, the actual campaigning and related preparations will begin. Put in that perspective, only eight months are left for the elections. Against this backdrop, the uproar that has been going on for the past few weeks has come to an end and the election trumpet has been blown. A meeting of the alliance of opposition parties was held in Bangalore. 26 parties participated in it.

At the same time, 38 parties participated in the ruling alliance meeting held in Delhi. These numbers don’t make much sense today. Because, in the next eight months, some of them will be broken and their egos will come out of the Kurwali alliance and at least join the opposing camp or fight independently and show their nuisance value. Therefore, the number of parties in both the alliances may be less or less. A real battle has erupted as both sides have begun the process of bringing together factions from their respective camps. This is the second meeting of the opposition in Bangalore. The first meeting was held at Patna in Bihar. The second meeting was to be held at Shimla; But considering the heavy rain there, the venue of the meeting was shifted to another state which is ruled by the Congress i.e. Karnataka. The presence of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi in the meeting shows that the Congress party is insisting that the main role in the opposition alliance should remain with the Congress. Although Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has clarified that the Congress Party will not insist on the post of Prime Minister, different signals have been given by seeing the activism of the Congress.

The Aam Aadmi Party clashed during the first meeting on the ground that the Congress party did not take a stand on the issue of the central ordinance related to the Delhi government, and also boycotted the subsequent press conference. Ahead of the second meeting, the Congress took a stand against the Centre’s ordinance and Arvind Kejriwal arrived for the Bengaluru meeting as questions arose as to what would happen to the alliance as Namana fell apart. The meeting at Patna was of preliminary nature. The shaping of the alliance was to take place at a later stage and the Bangalore meeting was therefore important. As expected, the name of the front was sealed in this meeting. Earlier, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was formed in 2004. Although many of its parties have gone out, the ‘UPA’ has survived. A new alliance, ‘Indian National Development Inclusive’ Alliance (India) was formed in Bangalore by putting a curtain on ‘UPA’.

It is clear that in the upcoming elections, the match between ‘NDA’ and ‘India’ will take place. The BJP had a definite strategy of calling a meeting of the constituent parties of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on the same day as the opposition meeting. There was also a specific plan to hold the meeting in the evening after the opposition meeting in the afternoon. Both Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress (NCP) splinter groups in Maharashtra are in ‘NDA’. Moreover, both the parties of Paswan uncle-nephew are in this alliance. After listening to the leaders of the constituent parties in the meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech gave a lot of clarity on the upcoming political struggle.

‘NDA’ was formed during the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He is completing twenty five years. In that sense, the meeting had gained special importance in the background of the silver jubilee of ‘NDA’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had criticized that the people gathered in the opposition front are people with many faces on one face. In the evening meeting, he assured to take everyone along. During the nine years someone has been neglected, the security system has hindered communication; But still no one understood without complaining. Because, he has explained the objective of his politics by saying that he is moving with the interest of the common man in front of his eyes. Complaints are raised in private that the constituent parties in ‘NDA’ are not taken into confidence. Taking note of this, Modi tried to take him into confidence.

As the opposition seriously tried to build a front, the Bharatiya Janata Party had to take note of it and support its fellow parties in the ‘NDA’. Because, the battle of 2024 will be tougher than 2014 and 2019. Being aware of the reality that if the works done by the government are in front of the people, if they are ignored, the anti-establishment sentiments generated by ten years of power may be affected, the BJP is making preparations. The feature of ‘NDA’ is that if Bharatiya Janata Party is placed in one constituency and the remaining 37 parties in the other, BJP’s party will remain very heavy. It is more likely to benefit the BJP. The ‘India’ alliance of the opposition has many parties and leaders of equal strength and competition at the state level. Leaders also have big egos. Therefore, the alliance will have to face conflicts or disagreements at many levels. There are indications that the match between ‘NDA’ and ‘India’ will be a draw in the overall Lok Sabha elections.