NATIONAL politics is witnessing a show of strength on either side of the political divide. The showdown of meetings convened by the 38 parties in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and 26 Opposition parties in different parts of the country has now set the ball rolling for the general elections scheduled next year. The ruling alliance and Opposition parties have come out with their own ideas of saving the country and its democracy with a promise to lead India towards a better future. Which way the electorate opts to go will be decided in less than a year but the meetings have left some interesting points to ponder for the political experts, leaders and also the voters. While the NDA sits in one corner wrapped in total assurance of putting up a united fight with the BJP at helm, there are still questions over the exact nature of the Opposition unity. After two rounds of deliberations, there are still many issues that need to be ironed out before putting up a united face.

 

This is the biggest challenge for the Opposition before standing up to the NDA might in 2024. Though the flock of 26 parties came together banking on the ‘United We Stand’ slogan, there is still a long way to go before the partners find a common ground. Their common agenda of defeating the BJP and Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi definitely binds them together but taking it further with their own ideological and political contradictions is a difficult task. Here, the term ‘unity’ itself comes with a feeble coat around it. The 26 parties who have decided to join hands have their own regional rivalries that run too deep. Though the call is to overcome all differences for the sake of a united platform against the BJP, the intricacies of cobbling up a steady alliance are too tricky for all the partners. Without a face to the alliance, keeping all the partners together seems a precarious exercise. There are still too many claimants for the post of leader of the alliance. Hammering out consensus for one name is next to impossible given the stakes each partner has in national projection.

 

One thing that must be kept in mind is the fact that the current round of meetings is being driven by non-mainstream parties. Their presence is limited to a few geographical regions which goes against their own claim of leading the alliance. Furthermore, many such parties are direct competitors of the Congress party which always goes for the larger share in the pie on the tag of being the Grand Old Party. Another point that can derail the meetings is the stature of parties among all the equals who have managed to pip the BJP in various Assembly elections. The BJP has definitely lost ground in many States in the last four years with Congress taking the larger share of pipping it to the post. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), too, has many things to boast including the victory in Punjab and rise in seats in other States. These factors are too strong to be brushed under the carpet given the nature of the Opposition alliance which has many regional parties with hardly any identity at the national level.

 

Soft as they may sound but such issues assume prominence in the final arithmetic of fighting an election together. The Opposition alliance is yet to tick many such boxes starting from giving an identity to their joint group to working on the formula of seat-sharing. The concept of Opposition unity is not new to national politics. But past experiences have shown that such fronts have been successful at the State-level. At the top level, many of the Opposition parties have been functioning in a rudderless manner and waking up only on the eve of general elections. Putting up a ramshackle alliance built on a fragile surface of unity would hardly be a challenge to the NDA partners led by the always election-ready BJP.