Do regional parties come together?

When prime minister Narendra Modi expanded his council of ministers in July 2021, he inducted seven ministers from Uttar Pradesh with an eye on February 2022 state assembly polls. The reward included inclusion of Apna Dal [Sonelal] leader Anupriya Patel while all seven ministers belonged to the backward classes who constitute about 50% of votes in the state. In Bihar, the Nitish Kumar regime is surviving on the crucial support from four MLAs each of Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) leader Mukesh Sahani’s Vikasshil Insaan Party (VIP) and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular).

In the 90-member Haryana state assembly, Manohar Lal Khattar government won a vote of confidence by 55 to 32 votes. The BJP has 39 members in the Assembly while the regional Jannayak Janta Party has 10 MLAs. The government also has the support of five Independents and one member of the Haryana Lokhit Party. In Delhi, the two national parties, the BJP and the Congress, stand completely marginalised. In the 2020 Delhi assembly polls, the Congress had the ignominy of suffering the double duck, scoring nil in the successive 2015 and 2020 state assembly polls. While the BJP can draw some solace from winning all seven Lok Sabha seats from the national capital, it is finding an ambitious challenger, Arvind Kejriwal, in far off states like Goa, Punjab and Uttrakhand threatening the national party, which is fancying itself as ‘World’s largest and fastest growing party.’

For the Congress, the good news seems to be that it cannot get worse. As per a September 2021 opinion poll, aired by the ABP News, C Voter survey claimed that Kejriwal scores higher than Rahul Gandhi as Prime Ministerial choice in four out of five election-bound states of Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. The only saving grace for the unofficial but supreme leader of the Congress is that in UP, he is ahead of Kejriwal by 2.9%.

According to Yashwant Deshmukh, psephologist and director of C Voter, in their daily tracker supposedly spread across the country, Kejriwal is emerging as a more preferred prime ministerial nominee than Mamata Banerjee while both Modi and Rahul remain ahead of the Delhi CM. The regional parties may well turn out to be the key for the 2024 parliamentary polls. From Shiv Sena to Trinamul Congress and Aam Admi Party, non-BJP-NDA regional parties are proving to be far more effective challengers to the Modi-led BJP than the grand old Congress. The regional parties are closing ranks to consolidate their gains.

In poll-bound UP, contender Akhilesh Yadav was quick to stitch alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), a former BJP ally-turned-rival for February 2022 polls.

SBSP president Om Prakash Rajbhar, a former minister in the Yogi Adityanath’ UP government, recently tweeted in Hindi, asserting, “The BJP will be wiped out this time. The Samajwadi Party and the SBSP have come together. The days of the BJP government, which betrayed all sections along with Dalits, backward, and minorities, are numbered.” Akhilesh Yadav, head of the SP, is said to be in talks with several smaller parties sans the Congress and the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM. The SP chief has also bought peace with his uncle Shivpal Yadav who heads the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L). It is interesting that Om Prakash Rajbhar is still trying to get Owaisi on board.

In private conversation, many political strategists including Prashant Kishor are of the view that the Modi-led BJP-NDA can be checked in 2024 polls if the Congress shakes itself up and puts up a credible fight in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttrakhand, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, parts of Maharashtra, Karnataka etc where it is in direct contest with the BJP. Regional parties like Trinamul, Shiv Sena, RJD, NCP, INLD, TDP, BJD, JD[S], DMK, SP, AAP, Left parties and others are capable of taking on the BJP-NDA in over 300 Lok Sabha seats. In their scheme of things, they have the courage to win 50% of such seats. But the big question is whether a ‘kamzor kadi’ [weak link], namely the Congress, is capable of winning 100 plus Lok Sabha seats? This is one scenario that is agitating the minds of many third front protagonists and leaders of regional parties.

In its defence, the Congress insists that as a political party, it had is vehemently opposed to the BJP and that it had no past association with the Sangh parivar.

From Trinamul to TDP, DMK to Shiv Sena, many regional parties have had a track record of becoming part of BJP-led NDA governments. The Left and the SP also flaunt their anti-BJP credentials, but their history is not that clean. In 1977, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav was part of the Janata Party that shared power with the Jan Sangh. In 1989, the Left extended support to V P Singh regime which was backed by the BJP. But in private conversations, Congress leaders admit that the party is facing an existential crisis of sorts, getting squeezed between a belligerent BJP and ambitious regional party leaders.

The BJP is wary of the regional parties in states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi where RJD, SP-RLD-SBSP, INLD and AAP have a potential of affecting 125 Lok Sabha seats.

It is also beginning to ponder about its future in case Modi restricts himself to the 75 year age cut-off line in public life. Several leading BJP politicians were pushed out, removed as chief ministers and cabinet ministers, given gubernatorial assignments purely on the ground of age. Will the regional parties come together more effectively to fight the BJP?

(The writer is an independent journalist)