Opposition parties to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are often at loggerheads with each other, and any coordinated action between them is never easy. There are many contradictions at ideological and personal levels; And they represent conflicting interest groups in most cases. Some are guarded in their approach to the BJP, and when they toughen up against it, it is often to protect their home turf. Meeting between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and other party leaders Like Congress’s Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury and Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal, New Delhi was exploratory rather than decisive. What is clear, however, is the growing understanding among non-BJP parties that mutual animosity can make them easy prey for the BJP, whose hunger for power is boundless. The fact that most of these non-BJP parties were born out of opposition to the Congress – and the BJP’s national rival – makes the common ground even more distant. The BJP is dominant in the Hindi heartland, while it faces resistance from regional parties in several states. There is no transfer of votes from alliances between regional parties as they are present in different regions. Some of these parties are rivals at the state level, as in the case of the Left and the Congress in Kerala. Therefore, generally speaking, pre-poll alliances are of limited consequence.
But there are states where parties can come together to garner anti-BJP votes, most significantly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where multiple parties are in the fray. Much will depend on how well the Congress manages to garner support in states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka, where it is the BJP’s primary rival. Social justice parties such as the Janata Dal (U) and Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, and the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh may coordinate their actions with the Congress. The role of Shri Nitish Kumar is important from this point of view, but the politics of social justice is facing a crisis of legitimacy in front of Hindutva itself. Alliances are important, but a shared program and vision, amplified by continued outreach to the public, are more important. The significant differences between prominent opposition leaders and VD Savarkar on the Adani controversy are examples of this. Any opposition front has to acknowledge the diversity of opinions and interests that exist among its principal actors. The challenge for them is to find common ground where they can converge. A puritan idealistic pursuit is an untimely luxury at this time; Whatever it is, it will not be able to match the ideological unity of the BJP.