The election has entered its seventh and final phase, polling is over in 486 constituencies and the remaining 57 seats will vote on June 1. It’s been a long haul, and in most parts, a punishing heat wave has hung over it, singeing and testing politicians and voters both. Should an election be such a hot and arduous trek to a faraway goal post — is a question that will remain after the results come in on June 4.
For now, before the election ends, here’s another question: Has the Opposition done all it could, is it doing all it can, to fight the dominant BJP?
With just one phase of polling to go, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has dismissed speculation about the Opposition’s prime ministerial candidate, saying that it is like asking “Kaun Banega Crorepati?” If the INDIA bloc forms government, all the leaders would decide who will be PM, he said in Shimla. And when they cast their vote on Saturday in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi would have pressed the button for the AAP candidate, and Arvind Kejriwal for the Congress candidate, given the two parties’ seat-sharing arrangement, underlining their pooled stakes in their respective constituencies.
And yet, Kharge’s sharp retort, or the photo-op featuring Kejriwal-Rahul reciprocity, may not be the last word in an election in which the incumbent dominates all spaces, and many voters ask: But what is the alternative?
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge campaigning for the INDIA bloc candidate in Sasaram, Bihar. (Photo: Mallikarjun Kharge/ X)
That the joint rallies of the INDIA bloc have been few and far between, that for all intents and purposes the alliance partners are fighting on their respective turfs singly, or that the bloc splits most visibly into its constituent parts as soon as you enter Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal fief, is not inconsequential. It could send a message to the voter who is a fence-sitter — the Opposition alliance’s work is not yet done.
Getting together leaders from different states and parties on one stage may admittedly have been a strain on the Opposition camp’s scarce resources. But it would have also been a strong signal to the sceptical or distrustful voter of its shared commitment to jointness and national stability.
In its absence, even the Opposition leader who could arguably be said to be on the upswing risks being seen by the voter as a viable player in the regional rather than national setting. Like the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, who has just been given more space to grow after Nitish vacated the Opposition space and went back to the BJP. Unlike a Mamata Banerjee, Tejashwi does not yet have to contend with anti-incumbency, and unlike a Sharad Pawar, he is not discomfited because his party has been split recently. Tejashwi’s energetic campaign, of which he is the only star, could well end up burnishing his credentials for the next Vidhan Sabha election, instead of winning Bihar for INDIA in the ongoing Lok Sabha poll. What is more, it may well be that gains in Bihar, not strengthening the INDIA bloc nationally, are also the priority of Tejashwi’s party.
To take on a BJP that has a multi-layered appeal for voters and is using all its considerable resources to corner its opponent, the Opposition also needed to throw it all in, together. That it has not been seen to do so, and that in too many places, it is giving the impression of pegging down its own ambitions, fighting to survive on its separate turfs, not to win nationally, could cost it dear.
Or not. Because if things go according to the Opposition’s plan, national and local discontents will combine with the BJP’s unmet promises and anxieties stoked by its in-your-face aggression, and do its job for it.
It is true that nationally, across states, price rise and unemployment are issues that worry voters. There are palpable farmers’ discontents, the young are restless as job opportunities remain elusive and stories abound of local-level corruption that scars delivery. In SC and ST pockets, and in sections beyond them, the BJP’s slogan of “400-paar” has stoked anxieties that a third-term BJP government could change the Constitution in a way that affects the reservation system particularly.
It remains to be seen whether or not the Opposition’s gamble — that it will be the receptacle of discontents against the BJP anyway, even if it does not come together fully — pays off.
But whoever wins, and whoever loses, two things that were new in this election must cause worry to both winners and losers. The issue of Constitution-under-siege was a newcomer in the electoral arena. So also were expressions of voter distrust in the poll machinery.
Of course, both were seen and heard on one side of the political divide, among those who oppose the BJP. But in a system where the final tally has seldom been questioned even by candidates who have lost close contests by narrow margins, and both sides have taken acceptance of the fundamental rules of the game for granted, these are troubling straws in the poll wind.
Till next week,
Vandita
