Come November, the BJP-led NDA government of Narendra Modi would be halfway into its second term in office. While there is considerable political excitement surrounding the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab next year, these would be mere semi-finals before the general elections scheduled in 2024.
A pattern that has clearly emerged in recent times is the distinct difference in trends between a national and state election. A party that does well in state elections may not be able to repeat the same performance in a national poll and vice-versa. Given this pattern, the next 30 months will see a ‘battle for the opposition space’ to challenge the party/alliance in power, which would be completing a decade in office.
The 2014 elections had seen the rout of the Congress-led UPA which had completed a decade in power. Riding on a crest of a strong anti-incumbency sentiment, the BJP-led NDA swept to power. After a quarter of a century (after 1989), a single party (BJP) managed to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha. The BJP-led NDA returned to power in 2019 on account of a combination of factors, including a strong leadership as well as a weak and divided opposition. Ever since the BJP victory of 2014, the opposition has had limited presence in the Lok Sabha. In two successive elections (2014 and 2019), the largest among the opposition parties—the Congress—has been unable to secure the minimum 10 per cent seats to claim the status of the leading opposition. As a result, the Lok Sabha has not had a formal Leader of the Opposition.
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Decline of Congress
Ever since it lost power in 2014, the Congress has been struggling to move forward on the path of revival. Having reached its lowest-ever seat tally in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it continued to remain on the margins even in in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In the last two-and-a-half years since the 2019 elections, the party has been unable to truly assert its presence as the principal opposition to the ruling party.
There continues to be a leadership vacuum in the Congress, protracted indecision on key issues and a steady conceding of the opposition space to ‘state-based’ parties. The number of states where the Congress is in power has been steadily declining. Even where it is in power, it is struggling to keep its flock together. This has raised a range of questions, especially which political formulation is emerging as the ‘nucleus’ of the ‘opposition space’.
Ever since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, India has been a witness to the emergence of a new dominant party system, with the BJP increasingly occupying centre-stage. It is not incidental that ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ is a key slogan of the BJP. The state of drift in the Congress party and its internal crisis and contradictions have further led many observers to believe that the Congress itself is contributing to its ‘creeping irrelevance’ in the ‘opposition space’.
Ever since Rahul Gandhi resigned as the Congress president, accepting responsibility for the Congress’ defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the leadership vacuum has cost the party dearly. It has been unable to take key decisions at a swift pace. The unity in the party has also been seriously threatened with an internal power struggle between different factions.
Since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it has been unable to come to power in any state on its own strength. It was unable to come to power in Kerala and lost its governments in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. The alliance governments it has formed in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu has the Congress as a junior partner. In the next two years, it would be going back to the electorate in states where it is in power. Further, this period will also see it challenging the BJP in a few key states where they are in direct competition.
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Rise of State-based Parties
Ever since 2019, the major electoral battles at the state level have either seen the BJP (and its allies) returning to power or a state-based party (either on its own or leading an alliance) defeating the BJP/NDA. The ‘state-based parties’ leading electoral victories began with the JMM-led alliance winning Jharkhand followed by the AAP victory in Delhi. In between, one saw the formation of a new ruling alliance in Maharashtra (with state-based parties playing a key role). The CPM-led alliance retained power in Kerala and the DMK-led alliance defeated the AIADMK-led NDA alliance. In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress retained power, staving off a direct electoral challenge from the BJP.
What appears to be clearly emerging is the vital role of ‘state-based parties’ in the emerging ‘opposition space’. The role of ‘state-based parties’ will be tested in the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The outcome of these elections could well define and decide the contours of the 2024 electoral contest.
Three factors assume significance in this regard. First, would the Congress be able to retain its role as a ‘key player’ among the opposition parties or would it have to reconcile with being ‘just one of the players’ in the ‘opposition space’? Second, will the contest between the ruling alliance and the opposition be increasingly seen as a choice of leadership? The electoral contest shaping up as a leadership battle would eminently suit the BJP and place them at a distinct advantage. Finally, will the key players in the opposition space be able to transform the battle as a contest based on an alternate set of programmes and policy priorities rather than a mere leadership contest? The key features of the ‘emerging opposition space’ will depend on the answer to these three questions.
Sandeep Shastri is the author of Lal Bahadur Shastri: Politics and Beyond, and Vice Chancellor, Jagran Lakecity University. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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