With his 50 per cent-plus vote share prediction for 2024 for the BJP-led NDA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to take on the new INDIA alliance on the very day it was formed in Bengaluru.
While the new alliance is aiming for a ‘seat-sharing model’ across Lok Sabha constituencies to put up a single opposition candidate on maximum seats, what INDIA actually needs is a “Counter Modi Model” as the prime minister remains the biggest calling card of his party, with continuing popularity at the national level among voters.
There is no face yet against Modi, who turned the 2014 and 2019 contests literally into ‘US presidential style’ fights with him leading the charge with the pitch of a ‘strong and decisive leader’ with no corruption taint and no baggage of being a political dynast.
Hard facts are also against the Opposition’s thought of political arithmetic of adding their respective vote banks into a consolidation vote-share pie.
For starters, the new alliance stands at about 140 seats in the present Lok Sabha pie while the NDA is way ahead at over 330 seats. PM Modi pointed out on Tuesday that the NDA had won as many as 225 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 with a vote share of over 50 per cent, implying that to snatch away those seats would be a tall ask for the Opposition. Further, NDA’s vote share had risen to 44 per cent in the 2019 polls from 38 per cent in 2014.
Opposition unity may have succeeded in some states like Bihar but has come a cropper in national elections against the Modi-led NDA. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, SP and BSP tried out an alliance but could reduce NDA’s seats in Uttar Pradesh only marginally from 73 in 2014 to 64 in 2019. The BJP subsequently wrested back two Lok Sabha seats in bypolls in the Samajwadi-party strongholds of Azamgarh and Rampur.
Further, INDIA has an uphill task in states like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Punjab among others where the leading regional players are unlikely and unwilling to give space again to the Congress party.
In the end, PM Modi remains the biggest challenge for INDIA. His face has no real counter in the opposition camp — with Rahul Gandhi’s face being roundly rejected by voters in 2014 and 2019. BJP hopes Modi’s chemistry with voters will defeat the arithmetic being flaunted on the other side.
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