New Delhi: There were several interesting facets to the Brigade Ground rally hosted for opposition parties by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on January 19.
Huge political representation — 25 leaders from 20 parties from across the country united to deny the Narendra Modi government a second term in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls — was, of course, the first among them. But the more understated facet perhaps was the absence of three big non-NDA parties.
Taken together, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana send 63 MPs to the Lok Sabha. That’s more than one-tenth of the Lok Sabha strength. The three big parties from these states — Biju Janata Dal (BJD), YSR Congress and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) — which are expected to gobble up a lion’s share of these seats, were visibly absent from the huge stage set under the banner of ‘United India’.
Assuming that the upcoming elections lead to a hung House, which seems to be an increasingly safe bet these days, it will be these three parties, which have so far maintained an air of neutrality, whose support might decide whether the BJP under Narendra Modi gets another term or not. So which way will they go? Of course, the usual disclaimers about the unpredictability of Indian politics apply.
The BJD has never since its inception in 1997 supported the Congress. In the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, the BJD won nine seats and the BJP seven when the two got into a pre-poll alliance. The alliance, for both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, remained strong till 2009 when BJD chief Naveen Patnaik decided to go solo in both parliamentary and state polls.
The gambit paid huge dividends to BJD, which won 103 of 145 Assembly seats and 14 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha.
The BJD has since maintained distance from both the Congress and the BJP. Although some would argue that a few symbolic gestures like staging a walk-out during the no-confidence vote against the BJP, praising the PM for his “good work for Odisha” or supporting the BJP’s idea of simultaneous elections, don’t really count for political neutrality.
Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik’s recent adverse comments against the PM notwithstanding, sources in the BJD say the party, which according to its internal survey is going to win all 21 Lok Sabha seats from the state, could again end up supporting the BJP, and not the other camp, in case of a hung House.
“It will most probably be outside support in which none of the BJD leaders will be seen in the Union Cabinet. But this support will also be lent only as a last resort. Otherwise, the BJD will continue to remain ‘neutral’ in both Houses of Parliament,” a party insider said.
The cases of TRS and YSR Congress, rumoured to be entering a pre-poll tie-up, are a little more complicated.
“YSR Congress, which is the principal opposition in Andhra Pradesh, could have exacted a hard bargain from the Congress and thought of supporting it. But by getting Chandrababu Naidu on their side, the Congress has effectively shut the door on Jagan Reddy,” said a source.
The YSR Congress, which is seeing a huge revival in the state given the massive traction that party president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s padyatra has got, is likely to bag at least half of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the remaining going to the TDP. Congress’s Andhra unit was also reportedly not in favour of a tie-up with the TDP.
“In case YSR Congress’s support becomes crucial, since its support base is Muslims, Dalits and Christians, it is unlikely to offer support to the BJP under Narendra Modi. So there could be some conditional support to the opposition camp in such a scenario. But there will be no support before the polls, only after,” the source added.
The TRS swept the recent Assembly polls as well as panchayat polls and is likely to bag, even by conservative estimates, at least 15 of the 17 Lok Sabha in the state. There seems to be little doubt about it supporting the BJP in case its support becomes crucial in government formation.
At present, it’s advantage BJP when it comes to the three big non-NDA parties.
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