Why Congress Deserves To Be The Fulcrum Of Opposition Unity For 2024 Polls

With around 400 days left for the 2024 general election, hectic parleys have begun both at the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party, and the opposition level. In his address to the BJP national executive in January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked party workers to reach out to minorities and marginalised sections of society. 

Bharat Rashtra Samithi, led by Telangana Chief Minister KC Rao, held its national launch rally last month where it vowed to defeat the BJP sharing stage with like-minded parties like the Samajwadi Party, Aam Aadmi Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India. The Congress is holding its plenary session from Feb. 24-26 in Raipur to finalise its strategy before crucial state assembly elections in nine states and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. 

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has set the ball rolling last week when he said that the Congress should take a call at the earliest on forging an alliance of opposition parties to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. He said the Congress must not rest on its laurels and make use of the momentum gained during Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in forging a coalition of parties opposed to the BJP.

The Congress responded by acknowledging that it knows its role in bringing together various opposition parties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The direction on opposition unity will come from the party's plenary session, where this issue will be deliberated upon. It also highlighted that any opposition unity without the Congress will be unsuccessful. 

The rise of the BJP under Modi and the decimation of the Congress election after election in the last nine years has led to the perception of a vacuum at the opposition level. The BJP’s 'Congress mukt Bharat' slogan has given this perception an impetus. The fact that regional parties like AAP, BJD, TRS/BRS, JMM, TMC and RJD have performed better against the BJP in the state elections vis-a-vis the Congress, has led to a feeling that Congress does not enjoy the monopoly over the main opposition party status and it is not the default party number two in the country. 

Regional satraps like Arvind Kejriwal, KC Rao and Mamata Banerjee today do not want to play second fiddle to the Congress at the national level, instead pushing their claim to be the alternative to the BJP. There was a vacuum left by the party’s inactivity over the recent years that had led many state leaders to attempt to fill the empty space, thereby reducing the grand old party’s standing and diminishing its national image as a major opposition force.

Contrary to perception, the Congress is the only party even today which has a pan-India presence. It continues to be the pole opposition party and is the strongest claimant to lead any joint opposition against the BJP. The data seals its claim to be the fulcrum of any joint opposition front.

• The number of seats won by the Congress is more than the sum of number three party DMK and number four party TMC in 2019.

• The Congress was runner-up in 209 seats. 15 regional parties together were runners-up in equal number of seats. 

• 10 regional parties combined contested on the same number of seats as Congress (422), as regional parties mostly are confined to their state boundaries.

• The votes secured by the Congress (in absolute terms as well as vote share terms) is more than votes secured by number three to number nine parties (TMC to TDP). 

  • Votes secured by INC in 2019 Lok Sabha polls were more than 4 times that of the No. 3 party TMC.

  • INC's vote share was 5 times that of the TMC.

• Number three to five parties in Rajya Sabha together have almost the same tally as Congress.

• The number of MLAs Congress has is almost the same as the sum of number three (TMC) to number six (DMK). 

• Only two other parties, CPM and NCP, have MPs in more than one state apart from the Congress, which has MPs from 15 states/union territories.

• The Congress has CMs in two states, equalled by the AAP after win in Punjab.

The Congress is the only political party that has never made a compromise with the BJP anywhere. For anti-opposition voters, the Congress comes across as one of the few parties that have not had any truck with the BJP in the past. Most of the bigwig regional forces have been associated with the BJP-led NDA in the past as detailed in the table below. 

Most of the satraps with national ambitions like Mamata Bannerjee (TMC), KC Rao (BRS/TRS), Nitish Kumar (JDU), Sharad Pawar (NCP) and Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) do not have any presence outside their home state. Almost 100% of their votes are sourced from their home states, except for AAP and CPM which have strong presence in two states each. This weakens their claim to lead any opposition unity efforts. 

Rao, the Telangana chief minister, is attempting to build a non-Congress, non-BJP alliance of regional parties. However, past history shows that except for Morarji Desai, no non-Congress, non-BJP PM, has lasted beyond a year in office. Ego and ambition of these satraps is likely to come in the way of selecting a leader from amongst them. 

Nitish Kumar is a seasoned leader. He understands the centrality of the grand old party in the current scheme of things. After breaking up with the BJP, he is negotiating with possible partners who could be a part of the broad-based UPA alliance. The Congress is a minority partner in his government in Bihar. 

The Congress should take lead and unite the state parties which pledge allegiance to it as the party looks upbeat after the Bharat Jodo Yatra response. The yatra has brought it back from the dead. It has given the party a boost and the moral high ground to lead the opposition ranks from the front. All that is needed is to keep this momentum going. Rahul Gandhi has clearly stated that his agenda is anti-RSS and the party is open to alliance with whosoever is against the policies of the RSS. The Congress by delaying the talks is leveraging itself so that it can bargain better for seat count for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Despite repeated failures, for 2024, it is the Congress which has the strongest claim to lead any united opposition front against the BJP as parties with national ambitions are not yet ready organisationally to challenge its prime opposition status.