India’s electoral map is a multi-coloured political mosaic. The BJP’s goal — not hid — is to make it a monochromatic mosaic. The Opposition events’ (those that are against the BJP) objective is to switch the BJP on the Centre and kind a liberal, progressive and inclusive authorities.

The Challenge

In each election since 2014, the BJP seeks votes not within the identify of the occasion or its manifesto however within the identify of Mr Narendra Modi. It has gone to the extent of interesting to the voters of Karnataka — the state will elect a brand new authorities on May 10 — to “hand over Karnataka to Modi”. For the BJP, it’s Mr Modi who’s the candidate in each constituency. The BJP thinks that ‘Modi everywhere’ is sufficient to obtain its goal.

As of in the present day, it seems that the Opposition parties do not have a common leader/candidate behind whom they’re keen to rally. This might change, however we’re trying on the place in the present day. Minus this seeming drawback, the Opposition events have many pluses and strengths, and this essay is meant to discover how the Opposition events can leverage their strengths.

Some excessive choices are dominated out. The Opposition events is not going to, and can’t, unite to kind a single new occasion, a la 1977, when the Janata Party was shaped. None of the Opposition events will cede the complete area in a state to a different occasion. Despite appeals to forbear, AAP contested the elections in Uttarakhand (2022) and Karnataka (2023) and TMC in Goa (2022). So, whereas complete Opposition unity is fascinating, it doesn’t appear possible.

Opposition Unity Platform

The various is an Opposition Unity Platform (OUP). An OUP will want every occasion to make concessions to others and acquire from the concessions made by the others. The define of the scheme is roughly as follows: create 4 columns of states and union territories and put every state/UT within the acceptable column (the quantity denotes the variety of LS seats)

Of course, it should be acknowledged that the BJP is extra dominant than the ‘Lead’ Opposition occasion in lots of the states (it has 302 MPs within the Lok Sabha).

In my view, if an OUP is shaped, the Congress can legitimately count on to take the lead in preventing the BJP in about 209 seats. Likewise, one other Opposition occasion amongst SP, TMC, RJD, JD(U), DMK, BRS and AAP can take the lead in about 225 seats. In three states, there are 2 or 3 events which are able to take the result in problem the BJP. In seven states with 53 seats, the winner might turn into a covert ally of the BJP.

Cardinal Rule

Next step: all events on the OUP should willingly subscribe to the rule that whereas the Lead occasion will contest a majority of the seats within the state involved, the Lead occasion will likely be obliged to offer every seat to the candidate who has one of the best likelihood of profitable the seat no matter the Opposition occasion to which the candidate might belong. Sometimes, this will imply denying the seat to the Lead occasion’s personal member. The objective is to not maximize the variety of seats that every Lead occasion might win however to defeat the BJP’s candidates within the most variety of seats. All Opposition events should stoop to beat.

The arithmetic is easy. The BJP is able to win over 150 seats. Among the Opposition events, the Congress alone is able to win over 100 seats. Every different Opposition occasion, even when there’s a wave in its favour, can win a most of 40 seats however, collectively, they will win as much as 150 seats. The BJP just isn’t unbeatable. If the Opposition events willingly subscribe to the plan that I’ve outlined, there’s a credible path to victory.

© The Indian Express (P) Ltd