In politics, a fortnight can feel longer than a year. Two weeks ago, this column argued that Narendra Modi’s opponents were running out of time to stop his re-election next year. Now, while the opposition still does not have a cohesive front to tackle the BJP-RSS combine, new—and unexpected—alliances have begun to emerge, while old alliances have broken away, and there is a fresh vigour among the opposition.

Let’s start with Andhra Pradesh, where BJP ally Telugu Desam Party (TDP), under Chandrababu Naidu, has pulled out of the government at the Centre—and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)—because Delhi has not released the funds the newly created state was promised (Andhra Pradesh was split in 2014 to create Telangana). A no-confidence motion was introduced into the Lok Sabha by the TDP and another Andhra party, but it’s expected to be defeated quite easily. In any case, the BJP says it ‘realised’ the TDP would withdraw from the alliance ‘two months ago’, and is now willing to go it alone in Andhra in next year’s elections, another sign of its pan-Indian ambitions. General secretary Ram Madhav, who has been key to the BJP expansion in the north-east, has been inducted as in-charge of party affairs in Andhra. 

The BJP may not be as worried by the TDP breakaway as much as by the results of the recent Lok Sabha bypolls in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).

Defeat in the backyard

The losses in Gorakhpur and Phulpur hurt the party, especially since the Gorakhpur constituency had been held by the BJP since 1989, and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had vacated his Lok Sabha seat for his new position. However, borrowing from Yogi’s own words, a snake and a mongoose unexpectedly came together to defeat the cow. The Samajwadi Party (SP), under Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son Akhilesh Yadav, and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP), under Mayawati, had been bitter rivals in the state. But Akhilesh, showing considerable political nous, reached out to Mayawati for the by-elections, and although the BSP did not field any candidates, it supported the SP. Akhilesh was gracious in victory too, insisting the two wins would not be possible without Mayawati and the BSP’s support. Now, the two parties, in all likelihood, will fight the 2019 elections in a seat-sharing alliance.

Together, the SP and the BSP present a significant challenge for the BJP in UP, where the party won 71 Lok Sabha seats out of 80 in 2014. The SP and the BSP’s combined vote share in the 2017 assembly elections was just over 50 percent, compared to the BJP’s 41.5 percent. ‘An analysis of constituency-wise data of the 2017 election shows that the BJP may lose as many as 50 Lok Sabha seats in UP should the SP and BSP votes be combined in 2019. Such a combine might get at least 57 of the 80 seats in the state; the BJP only 23.’

Then there is the Indian National Congress, whose president Rahul Gandhi has renewed its Hindu symbolism by comparing the BJP to the Kauravas of the Mahabharat, and his party to the Pandavas ‘who lost everything but fought for the truth’ at a recent session, but failed to present a vision for 2019. Its joy at the defeat of the BJP in the UP by-elections is also undeserved, since both its candidates lost their deposits after refusing to join the SP-BSP alliance. 

While none of these three developments can individually hamper the BJP’s re-election, considered together, it is clear 2019 will not be as easy for Modi as 2014.

A broad opposition to the BJP has emerged across party lines and ideologies. Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and KC Rao of Telangana are batting for a Third Front without the Congress or the BJP, while BJP allies Shiv Sena have said they will fight the next Lok Sabha elections by themselves. Breakaway Thackeray clan leader Raj Thackeray said all parties must unite for a ‘BJP-mukt Bharat’, while Communist leader Sitaram Yechury thinks the 2019 election ‘will be either the 2004—when regional parties supported the Congress—or the 1996 situation, when the Congress supported a united front government.’

But will the opposition find its ground before the elections to mount a united challenge? 

Stemming the Lotus

It’s too early to give a definitive answer, but the the greatest obstacle for any unified opposition is to decide on which party ‘will take the lead, and whether others will agree to play second fiddle’, as a political analyst said. The Congress has been electorally diminished, and it doesn’t hold the same clout as earlier. In any case, regional parties like Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) have too many hatchets to bury with the Congress, while in UP, Akhilesh Yadav will remember his disastrous alliance with the Congress in the 2017 assembly elections. Yechury’s in-party proposal that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) ally with the Congress before elections was soundly defeated in January. Conversations with political reporters inevitably centre around whether a united opposition front can be maintained. ‘There are multiple, competing contradictions within what we refer to as the larger “united opposition”, making it difficult for it to come together in the first place, and then, remain united,’ the analyst said.

Then there’s the fact that none of these parties has presented an alternative to the BJP’s majoritarian-driven vision of India. The BJP has successfully fused nationalism with Hinduism (as Savarkar originally intended), and the ‘Hindu identity’ can transcend any caste vote-banks, as previous elections have shown. The Congress has recently attempted to claim the Hindu space as its own, with Rahul Gandhi’s temple visits, Sonia Gandhi’s statement that BJP had convinced voters the Congress was a ‘Muslim party’, and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s new book ‘Why I am a Hindu’ which negates the BJP-RSS’s Hindutva. 

But in many ways, this is playing into the BJP’s hands. Modi has projected himself as a Hindu champion, and any challenge on the Hindu front will be met by a reimagining of the BJP as proud bearers of the Hindu flag beset by non-Hindu rivals on all fronts. With the Muslim Indian staying away from the BJP, unless the parties in the Indian heartland can convince their many caste voter-base that BJP’s Hindu vision means a return to the domination of upper castes in Indian polity, the Hindu vote will not be easy to break up. 

There’s also the arithmetic to consider. For example, in a contested, and numerically important, state like UP, how will the SP and the BSP divide its seats? Mayawati knows any failure in the upcoming elections will potentially spell doom for her movement, and she may not be as agreeable as during the by-elections if she feels the alliance will negate the BSP’s future. ‘The experiment of two rival parties uniting may have worked smoothly in a limited geography [like Phulpur and Gorakhpur], but whether it can work across the entire state, and in other states, is difficult to say,’ the analyst said.

But the many parties united against Modi will be desperate to stop the BJP for one simple reason: the BJP has, time and again, shown it has no regard for regional fiefs, and intends to be a national party with the same mass appeal as the Congress once had. There’s also a case to be made for how centre–state relations have deteriorated under this government, ‘especially after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime was implemented,’ a reporter told me. ‘The [opposition] parties have been pushed to the wall,’ he said. With that in mind, all other calculations may be put aside for a simple battle cry whose primary objective is to stop the BJP from returning to power, come whatever may.