Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 18 June 2018 | Page 32

COVER STORY
The battle for 2019
is pregnant with
­possibilities. But
who will be Modi’s
­principal opponent
is no less intriguing.
FINDING THE CH
G
by Ruben Banerjee
ENERAL elections, the political spectacle that arg­
uably overshadows every other event in India, may
still be a year away, but the country seems to have
caught the poll fever already. A spate of elections—
from Karnataka to Kairana—has nudged public
discourse towards what could be in store for us in
the parliamentary polls scheduled for mid-2019. Elections
being the flavour of the season, political pundits are on
overdrive and holding forth on what to expect. Modi hawa,
the wave that swept the BJP stalwart to power in 2014,
we are told, has considerably ebbed. In its place, many
talking heads say, are festering pockets of disquiet that are
apparently dragging down the prime minister’s popular­
ity. Petrol prices heading north, rising farmers’ distress,
a gnawing sense of insecurity among minorities and
increasing restiveness among Dalits and other marginal
sections of the society are reportedly working against
Modi and his NDA government.
32 OUTLOOK 18 June 2018
The biggest talking point in recent weeks, however, has been
the signs of emerging unity among what is otherwise known to
be a fractious and disparate opposition. The Congress and the
Janata Dal (Secular) came together post-election to thwart the
BJP in its bid to capture power in Karnataka. In Kairana, Uttar
Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the
Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal buried their differences to
sink the BJP’s chances of retaining the parliamentary seat. It
followed similar reverses for the ruling party in the bellwether
state against a united opposition in Gorakhpur and Phulpur.
The recent results signify that once the opposition parties
come together, burying their conflicting ambitions and ideo-
logical differences, they will have an arithmetical advantage. It
could have been so even in 2014. In Uttar Pradesh, where the
BJP won 71 of 80 Lok Sabha seats, statistics show that no less
than 51 of those 71 would have been won by an alliance of the
SP, the BSP and the Congress, had it existed then.
Bridging differences within opposition ranks is, of course,