NDA vs INDIA
By the way, BJP is also increasing the clan of NDA to cut the opposition solidarity. On Tuesday, 26 opposition parties gathered in Bengaluru and 39 parties under the banner of NDA in Delhi. But there is a big difference between the India of NDA and the opposition. There are mostly small parties in the NDA. Of the 39 parties that attended its meeting in Delhi, 25 are such that do not have a single MP in the Lok Sabha. On the other hand the INDIA of the opposition consists mostly of large regional parties. Some of the leaders of those parties are Chief Ministers and some are former Chief Ministers as well. However, out of 26 opposition parties gathered in Bengaluru, there are 10 which do not have any MP in the Lok Sabha. Looking at the national grand alliance of the opposition, the BJP’s road to 2024 looks very difficult. Veterans like Mamta Banerjee, Nitish, Lalu, Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray are united along with the Congress. There is a strategy of one candidate on every seat, then 2024 should be within reach. but it’s not like that. Even though the opposition alliance looks strong on paper, the ground reality is different. So understand why the path of united opposition in 2024 is not easy.
In 2019, BJP got more than 50 percent votes in more than 200 seats.
Addressing NDA leaders on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a target of 50 per cent plus voteshare. The biggest weapon in the BJP’s quiver against opposition unity is this – securing more than 50 per cent votes. BJP is still trying to establish its foothold in the South. His only southern fort Karnataka has also been destroyed. In such a situation, the target of getting 50 percent vote share of BJP or NDA at the national level looks beyond reality. But the results of 2019 are giving a new boost to the BJP’s spirits. The BJP has 224 MPs in the Lok Sabha who won the last election by securing 50 percent or more votes. This means that these BJP MPs got more votes in their respective seats than the total votes received by all other candidates including NOTA. The special thing is that in more than half of the seats BJP contested, it got 50 percent or more votes. In 2019, BJP contested only 436 seats.
BJP got more than 70% votes in 8 seats
In 2019, out of 224 Lok Sabha seats where BJP got close to 50 percent or more votes, all 26 seats in Gujarat, all 7 in Delhi, 25 in Madhya Pradesh, 23 in Rajasthan, 40 in UP, 20 in Karnataka, 14 in Bihar And 9 seats of Haryana, 6 of Chhattisgarh, 5 of Uttarakhand, 6 seats of Himachal were included. There were 8 seats where BJP candidates won by securing more than 70 percent votes. These seats are- Mumbai North, Bhilwara, Navsari, Surat, Faridabad, Vadodara, Kangra and Karnal.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, where the BJP won by securing 50 per cent or more votes, 120 were the ones where it was in a direct contest with the Congress. These seats belonged to states like Gujarat, MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand.
More than 50% votes for BJP in 16 States/UTs
In the last Lok Sabha elections, there were 16 states/UTs where BJP’s vote share was near or more than 50 percent. Among them, Gujarat got 62 percent, Rajasthan and MP 58-58 percent, Delhi 56 percent, Himachal 69, Uttarakhand 62, Chhattisgarh 50, Haryana and Arunachal 58-58 percent, Karnataka and Jharkhand 52-52 percent and Tripura 49 percent. In 2019, BJP alone had a vote share of 49.9 per cent in UP but the NDA’s vote share was above 51 per cent.
Opposition’s use of ‘UP ke boys’, ‘bua-bhatija’ and ‘yuva josh’ has become fussy
Politically, the opposition’s alliance strategy to defeat the BJP in the country’s largest state UP has failed miserably in the last 3 elections. In the 2017 UP assembly elections, the Akhilesh-Rahul’s ‘UP ke ladke’ campaign under the SP-Congress alliance failed miserably. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the much publicized ‘bua-bhatija’ experiment of Mayawati-Akhilesh in UP also failed. Akhilesh-Jayant Chowdhary’s ‘youthful enthusiasm’ also could not stand anywhere in front of BJP in 2022 UP assembly elections. The strength of INDIA of the opposition is strong satraps, then the weakness is also there. This is because the area of influence of these satraps is limited to a particular state. They don’t have much influence in other states. After all, what impact will Mamata Banerjee be able to make in UP or what impact will Akhilesh Yadav be able to make in West Bengal or Gujarat?
By the way, out of more than 200 seats that BJP won in 2019, some of them were from Bihar and Maharashtra. In 2024, the road is not that easy for BJP in both these states. Then Nitish was with him in Bihar. Uddhav Thackeray was with us in Maharashtra. But now both are desperate to defeat the BJP. However, the BJP has made preparations to make up for the possible losses in Maharashtra. Uddhav Thackeray has lost his party. The command of Shiv Sena is now in the hands of Eknath Shinde who is now with BJP and is the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The NCP has also split and the faction led by Ajit Pawar is now with the BJP.
What opposition unity without Mayawati, KCR, Jagan, Naveen?
At least looking at these figures, the path of opposition’s INDIA in 2024 is not as easy as it appears on paper. It is also worth noting that Mayawati, K. Parties of stalwarts like Chandrasekhar Rao, Naveen Patnaik and Jagan Mohan Reddy are not included. The party of Chandrababu Naidu and HD Deve Gowda is also not included.