NDA vs INDIA
Why ‘non-aligned’ regional parties may play a key role
The Bharatiya Janata Party stood at a crossroads on May 28, 1996. It emerged as the single largest party just 16 years after it was created and 12 years after it faced the humiliation of winning only two Lok Sabha seats. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was elected Prime Minister with 164 votes. However, the politics that fueled the saffron party’s rise were also the reason it was unable to secure enough allies. Vajpayee resigned as Prime Minister after only 13 days in office, unable to form a majority.
Between 1996 and 2014, the party was afflicted by the contradiction illustrated by India’s shortest prime ministerial term. With less than a year till the general elections in 2023, there is little doubt that “Moditva” is the fulcrum of the BJP’s politics. However, as the party and J P Nadda’s frantic efforts to promote the NDA as an active (and maybe as diverse as the opposition’s India) organisation demonstrate, the need for partnerships cannot be avoided.
The LJP (Ram Vilas) will be the NDA’s powerful arm in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections: Paswan, Chirag
In 1989, two events occurred that have influenced Indian politics ever since. First, the Mandal Commission issued its report, paving the way for the type of social justice politics that we witness today. It has also, perhaps most loudly since Independence, emphasised the importance of social and economic opportunity for the great majority of non-upper castes as a cornerstone of Indian politics.
The ascension of Narendra Modi to power was founded, at least in part, on the Vajpayee years. It was under the latter that the BJP established itself as a viable national political force. That decade also saw the strengthening of crucial alliances that helped the Modi-Shah BJP gain traction in 2014, including long-standing partners such as the Shiv Sena, JD(U), and Akali Dal. However, the BJP has risen at the expense of its allies over the last nine years. The Shiv Sena, India’s only other significant Hindutva party, has also abandoned Modi’s BJP.
Indeed, the same dynamics that have made former allies suspicious of the BJP—hard Hindutva, breaking parties, and cases of corruption that disappear and reappearance depending on party affiliation—is likely fueling the constituency.
– New Delhi, India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over the NDA’s major gathering of 39 allies in Delhi last evening, shortly after the Opposition’s Bengaluru huddle concluded with the finalisation of the name I.N.D.I.A. is the acronym for the United Front Against the BJP.
The 26 parties who attended the important conference decided to call the united opposition front the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, establishing a “BJP versus India” narrative for the 2024 general elections.
The war has finally begun. Both armies are prepared. The first has 26 parties, whereas the second has 38. The first is India, and the second is NDA. The first is guided by collaborative leadership, while the second is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India professes to desire to recover its lost democracy and constitutionalism.
The BJP, which leads the NDA, has levelled a volley of charges against the opposition, portraying them as corrupt, dynastic, and opportunistic. What is certain in the war of words is that the struggle for 2024 is no longer one-sided, and Modi cannot claim a walkover as he did in the last two elections.
There were numerous sceptics, even among the Left-liberal camp, who were sceptical of opposition leaders ever getting together under the same umbrella, given significant ego clashes, ideological differences, and political opportunism. Many have been shocked by the ease with which they came together to form INDIA, the acronym indicating a new political force to challenge Modi directly on. Given the political gap, even figures in the anti-Modi camp were sceptical of such a coalition forming a few months ago. Despite their shared belief that Modi and the BJP could not be defeated unless they banded together, there was a sense of pessimism and despondency.
