On June 23, 2023, in Washington DC and Patna, he has framed the lines of the Great Battle of 2024 for which India is preparing.
The red carpet welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US, a state banquet for US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, attended by 400 guests who competed with each other to be there, a vegetarian meal specially curated by the First Lady, speech by Modi to a joint session of the US Congress (the first prime minister to do it twice), the promise of technology transfers, the end of a regime of denial, the signing of space and defense agreements, including fighter jet engines, all designed for a man who had been denied a visa. The USA
The focus of the carefully crafted and carefully executed visit was as much about India 2024 as it was about the enhanced bilateral relations between the two countries. Intellectuals and academics at home could quibble over the fine print of the visit, but Modi happily met academics and intellectuals in America.
It was also about national pride, ‘desh ki izzat’, creating a sense of well-being between the diaspora and Indians at home, of India being given their due on the stage worldwide
Back home, another meeting was being held in the dusty plains of the country, in Patna, where many movements for change have been born, such as the Bihar movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan that dethroned a powerful prime minister like Indira Gandhi in 1977 . Leaders of 15 anti-Modi parties meet to plan how they can defeat him in 2024.
Opposition leaders have also met in the past for photo ops, with nothing substantive coming out of the exercise, although photo ops are not to be sniffed at, as Modi has demonstrated over the past decade and more. But Patna seemed to mean a little more than the usual optics.
To begin with, the meeting organized by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar brought together those who until now had serious political reservations about the Congress, including Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal. It also had the two most important Congress figures present: party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi.
Since most regional parties have grown at the expense of the Congress and fear its revival at its cost, they understandably fear the Congress acting like the big brother. And yet most state satraps now admit that opposition unity would be meaningless without the Congress.
The ball is now in Congress’s court, how to decide between Left and Mamata in West Bengal; be reasonable in its demand for seats in Uttar Pradesh; and resolving the AAP issue, with the latter pushing on Friday for the Congress to take a stand on the Centre’s ordinance stripping the Delhi government of administrative powers.
The AAP may have to rethink its strategy, however, with Kejriwal not getting the support of other opposition parties in Patna, on how he practically held a gun to the Congress’s head on the issue.
As for Congress, it has shown signs of easing. By all accounts, Rahul informed Nitish that he will not be in the polls in 2024 and urged the state satraps to go ahead and forge unity and that the Congress would support their efforts.
Patna also proved that the idea of a ‘third front’ – a front of regional parties minus the Congress – is a thing of the past. Politics will now be of two fronts, one led by the BJP and the other formed by the opposition, which includes the Congress.
Of course, there are the non-BJP ‘non-aligned’ parties, but in reality, they are more with the BJP than the other side. The Naveen Patnaik-led BJD will go it alone in the elections and will in all likelihood give issue-based support to whoever comes to power next year. So will Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP. The semantics of Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K Chandrashekar Rao is a little different; talks about opposition unity but is more critical of the Congress than the BJP and plans to field candidates against it in Maharashtra as well, apart from Telangana.
If the opposition makes an effort to unite, the BJP is also reviewing its strategy on allies, aware that it lacks presence in the South and peaked in the North in 2019, and aware of an anti-incumbency of 10 years that takes its control. toll
He has an alliance with the AIADMK, while TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu has had a meeting with Amit Shah. The BJP has long been making overtures to former ally Akali Dal, while former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, patriarch of a weakened JD(S), has often praised Modi.
One of the absentees in Patna was the RLD’s Jayant Chaudhury, an ally of the SP who announced a day before the meeting that he would not be able to make it. The RLD has tried to quash any speculation about Chaudhury’s future plans, saying he had a “pre-arranged” event to attend.
The opposition would probably not have lost Jitan Majhi’s Hindustan Awami Morcha, which broke away from the JD(U) and returned to the NDA, days before the Patna meeting.
One of the biggest challenges for the opposition will be to find a leader acceptable to all who can give a “takkar (tough competition)” to Modi. While the BJP’s fortunes might have taken a hit, the Prime Minister more or less retains his popularity.
Opposition leaders on Friday indicated that they knew what lay ahead and are clear that they must remain focused on the bull’s eye, ensuring “one-on-one contests” against BJP/NDA candidates in as many constituencies as Lok Sabha as possible. As one congressional leader remarked, “Nothing else really matters.”
On the other hand, Modi can be expected to rely on macro strikes to maintain support. Washington DC was another reminder of this: an invocation of Indian pride, which the BJP believes can help conquer the disappointment that may ensue, of job losses, reduced incomes, increased expenses . “I used to pay Rs 140 a kg for gwar ki phali, which used to grow all over Maharashtra,” said a Mumbai doctor recently. “And my domestic help can’t even afford the vegetables in her family’s diet.”
Modi’s massive trash talk will gather momentum in the coming months, even with the G20 summit in September, attended by the world’s most powerful leaders, ahead of state elections. Next will come the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya in January 2024, billed as a “civilization project”, and expected to be built around Modi’s persona, with an outreach planned especially for those in the south of India, as also for lower castes such as the Valmikis. and Nishads.
It is this aspect of Modi’s politics that the opposition parties have not known how to counter.
(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 10 Lok Sabha elections)
