An attempt to forecast the Opposition’s future must necessarily read its past with counterfactual imagination and realism. Such a reading will underscore Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s pivotal role in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

He deserted the INDIA bloc, comprising the stronger of the Opposition parties, after he was denied the post of its convenor. Kumar, in pique, crossed over to the National Democratic Alliance, which won 30 out of 40 seats in Bihar.

Take out, say, 25 of those 30 seats from the NDA’s eventual tally of 293—a distinct possibility without Kumar in that alliance—and Narendra Modi would have struggled to become the Prime Minister. India’s politics would have traversed a trajectory different from that in the present.

Realism must, however, temper the counterfactual reading of the past. Instead of battering a weakened Bharatiya Janata Party, the Opposition, in finer fettle than it had ever been since 2014, lost, in a little over a year, state Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and Bihar. The Opposition returned to looking debilitated, depressed and terminally ill. Worse, the causes of its illness ostensibly seem incurable. A factor behind the Opposition’s defeat in the aforementioned states was the transfer of doles, in cash, or the promise of it, to people before they voted. The BJP and its allies will likely repeat this winning formula before Assembly elections in the 21 states and Union Territories where they are in power. Money in the voter’s bank account counts more than the Opposition’s promise of bettering the deal for him or........

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