'Opposition needs to get it is act and tact together': Chandrasekhar

K.M. Chandrasekhar | Getty Images

There has been much noise recently about the opposition finally uniting and confronting the BJP with a formidable, invincible front. How much of this is fact, how much bluster, how much imagination?

To begin with, this view is founded on the largely fallacious reasoning that since the BJP got a total vote share of only 37.36 per cent of the votes cast in the 2019 general elections, about 63 per cent must be against them. Hence, if there is a one-on-one election, the opposition will win hands down. This may not happen as a matter of course. A voter who votes in favour of, say, the AAP, need not necessarily be hostile to the BJP, but only that he prefers a particular candidate from the AAP. If, under the united opposition, he is confronted with the choice of voting for a left party, he may well prefer the BJP candidate.

Nor do state elections give any indication of the choice for the Centre. In the run-up to the 2019 general elections, the Congress won in four states, but they could not muster enough vote share even from those states in the general elections. To take just one example, the vote shares of the BJP and the Congress in Rajasthan were 38.8 per cent and 39.3 per cent respectively in the 2018 state election. In the 2019 general elections, the vote shares were 59.07 per cent for the BJP and 34.5 per cent for the Congress. In fact, for the Congress, 15 of the 52 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2019 came just from one small state―Kerala.

The belief that the opposition will magically unite, as had happened after the Emergency, also seems far-fetched. The Emergency was a full-blown dictatorship in large parts of the country, particularly northern India. During the past few years, there has certainly been a movement towards despotism through unrestrained use of investigative and regulatory agencies but it cannot be said that it has taken the shape of oppressive control, affecting all people. The terror engine is as yet moving cautiously. It is used more to threaten than to crush. It may gather speed and momentum after 2024, but as of now, the kind of centrifugal force that brought all the opposition parties together in 1977 does not exist.

The other factor that will influence the outcome in 2024 is the emergence of Modi as a cult figure. Everything, including food rations, cooking gas cylinders, houses for the poor, roads, railways, and even digitisation and Covid vaccinations, is projected to flow from him. No minister will talk of anything or launch any new project without a paean for the supreme leader. His image is to be found in every nook and corner of the country. Modi is also being typecast as a spiritual phenomenon, much like Duvalier of Haiti. Massive edifices are coming up, reminding us of Ceausescu's Palace of the People in Bucharest. The creeping changes in education, in interpretations of culture, and even the differences with the judiciary remind us of pre-war Germany. While servility is the preferred virtue among ruling party politicians and favoured civil servants, it is yet to assume the dimensions of repressive megalomania.

The structure and composition of opposition parties also raise doubts about their ability to coalesce. The Congress and the BJP seem equally opposed to the AAP. The Congress’s Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is no friend of the Trinamool Congress. The ambitions of the Biju Janata Dal are limited to Odisha, while the Bharat Rashtra Samithi is now trying to spread its wings, much like the AAP and the Trinamool. Kerala is used to intense hostility between the Congress and the CPI(M), both of whom lead fronts composed of different parties. Any attempt to bring them together may be short-sighted, as they will then yield opposition space to the BJP.

There are personal ambitions of leaders of different parties. There is no sign of a single unquestioned leader emerging from the ranks of the opposition, while the BJP leadership is clear as crystal. Some parties would stay apart from a united opposition front either out of personal animosity or out of fear. Uttar Pradesh, with 80 Lok Sabha seats, looks firmly aligned with the BJP at this point. On the resources front, the BJP is far ahead of all other parties, and their party mechanism, right down to the booth level, is fully functional.

Except for the travels of JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar and the occasional dinner thrown by Congress’s Mallikarjun Kharge, there are no signs of any process of consolidation by the opposition. Yet the elections in Karnataka have undeniably opened a new window of opportunity. Not just because the Congress won, but because of the sheer magnitude of the victory, despite Modi and his clever lieutenant, Amit Shah, having personally invested so much time and energy and resources in the campaign. If this opportunity is seized, they have the chance to fight better than in 2014 and 2019.

Whether Karnataka will just be another flash in the pan or the beginning of a new dawn for the opposition will depend on the resolve and determination of opposition leaders and their ability to agree on the broad contours of an agenda, create a coordination mechanism and sit together, and analyse strengths and weaknesses in every state and constituency in a spirit of give and take. Whether they win or lose, a strong opposition is needed to preserve democracy and Constitutional values. As RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said in Ahmedabad in February, “One person, one thought, one group, one ideology cannot make or break a country…. Good countries of the world have all kinds of thoughts. They also have all kinds of systems, and they are growing with this multitude of systems.”

K.M. Chandrasekhar, Former cabinet secretary of India