Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will witness a tough competition for 2024 Lok Sabha Elections (general elections) as 26 opposition parties have stood as one alliance against the national leader.
The opposition alliance will be named INDIA, an abbreviation for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. The opposition’s next meeting, its third, will be held in Mumbai, a metropolitan city on the west coast of India.
Topmost leaders from the opposition attended the meeting in Bengaluru, city in the Southern state of Karnataka, on Tuesday including national opposition’s leader Sonia Gandhi.
In Tuesday’s meeting, the leaders talked on issues like seat-sharing, on how many seats each party would fight, and a common programme for the election. The second meeting of the opposition in Bengaluru was a two-day meeting. After the second day of the meeting, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, while addressing a press conference, said, “We are setting aside our political differences to save democracy.”
However, winning over Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which won more than 300 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha (the lower house of India’s parliament) in 2019 will be a highly tough challenge even when a huge number of parties unite as one.
BJP has had its fair share of ups and downs in the recent state elections, but it still rules close to 15 out of the 28 states, in some on its own or in a coalition. BJP is the country’s richest political party which has declared its income as 19.17 billion rupees ($233.67 million) in 2021-22. Narendra Modi is BJP’s biggest face and even political strength who has always held his power of swaying people high and has been successful of garnering votes from all sections of society.
Issues with the Opposition
Opposition parties are coping with their own difficulties in the meanwhile.
Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Congress party, lost his eligibility to serve as an MP in March after being found guilty and given a prison term in a defamation case over remarks he made about Modi’s last name at an electoral rally in 2019. He is unable to run in the election the next year unless his legal appeal is successful.
Due to divergent political ideas, many opposition groups are also at odds with one another in states like West Bengal and Delhi. Others are attempting to deal with a lack of cohesion among senior state leaders, while some, like the Nationalist Congress Party, are confronting internal defections. However, commentators claim that the opposition is becoming more united due to a strong anti-BJP mood, prompting them to look
At the press conference, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described the discussion as “constructive” and “fruitful.” She questioned, “BJP, can you challenge INDIA?”
Sonia Gandhi will reportedly lead the opposition alliance, according to some sources, but there has been no official confirmation.
A meeting of 38 partners of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was also scheduled to take place on Tuesday in Delhi.
The opposition meeting was condemned on Monday by JP Nadda, head of the BJP, who claimed that it was founded on “the politics of selfishness.”
