Two months from now, more than 850 million Indian voters will decide the ruling party and, in turn, the Indian Prime Minister. Indian elections have famously been hard to predict, especially due to changing public opinion and the prevalent hyper-competitive multi party system. To many people, the election is a cakewalk for the BJP but what they don’t realise is that the Narendra Modi led party faces many challenges that could sway the 2019 verdict. For example, the party should currently be focusing on activities like withstanding a disappointing economic performance and contending with voter mobilisation.
Along with these disturbances comes the large opposition they must face in the form of the Indian National Congress (abbreviated as the Congress) led by Rahul Gandhi. Recently, the Congress may have made the race that much more interesting by choosing Priyanka Gandhi to handle party affairs in the key election state of Uttar Pradesh (the state sends 80 MPs to the 545 member Lok Sabha and has elected 9 PMs in the past). Priyanka’s appointment had Congress staff celebrating across India as many believe that her entry into politics might help her brother pose a credible challenge to the power of the BJP. In the 2014 elections, the INC held only 44 seats in the Lok Sabha with a mere 8% vote share in UP. This was largely attributed to the fact that the party hadn’t seen any new faces in a considerable period of time.
Priyanka is now being called the ‘game-changer’ in the elections as the Indian populace sees her to be far more charismatic than Rahul and many see similarities between her and Indira Gandhi. She has a unique ability in that she can strike a chord with the voters. Since she has only recently taken up her post, only time will tell how her persona fares against the Indian demographic.
Another key (and far more vocal) contender is Mamata Banerjee, the current CM of West Bengal and leader of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC). Her party wants to show Mamata as the foremost opposition leader against Modi and in order to achieve this, recently held what is being called a mega-rally in the brigade ground in Kolkata. This is a geo-politically crucial move as the rhetoric of ‘Hindutva’ is already considerably less visible than in the Hindu heartland. This, in turn, means that the state harbours more potential for the opposition and this did not go unnoticed. While Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati were unable to personally attend, their parties accompanied by Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and Gujarat leaders Hardik Patel and Jignesh Mevani spent hours denouncing the BJP and Modi to a crowd comprising lakhs of Indian voters.
These kinds of attacks are not new for Mamata who has, in the past, openly criticised Modi, even going as far to say “BJP hatao, desh bachao and Jai Hindh, Vande mataram”. After this show of a united opposition, it is safe to say that while Mamata obviously has aspirations to become Prime Minister herself, she also currently has the backing of 22 other political parties, making for a massive coalition opposition that Modi would never be able to split. In order to keep internal tensions low, the coalition has agreed that the prime ministerial choice would be a post-poll one.
The third major opposition Modi must counter is Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, the party that had the third largest vote share in the 2014 elections (despite not winning any seats in the Lok Sabha). The BSP has strong ties with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party so much so that the two parties have even agreed to share “50:50” (or 38 seats) in Uttar Pradesh. The only concession is for the Congress where they have spared Amethi (Rahul Gandhi’s constituency) and Raebareli (Sonia Gandhi’s constituency). The two parties even teamed up for the by-polls that were considered “prestige battles” for the BJP where they showed that together, they can be an unstoppable force.
The reason why Mayawati may actually have a higher chance of winning a majority is because she expects her coalition to win majority of the dalit votes while the upper class votes are expected to be divided between the BJP and Congress, hopefully splitting the vote and ensuring her victory.
This, however, is not the final word. What might happen in the elections can be greatly influenced by events during the run up to the elections. Modi may, in light of the Pulwama attacks, launch another surgical strike on Pakistan or maybe he may launch a scheme to build the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. This, of course, is mere speculation. As unsure as the poll to be held in April.
