Things are not working out yet—for either the INDIA bloc or the Indian National Congress.
Current trends and public mood—at least in the media and on social media—postulate that 2024 may be lost to them. After that, they are dead in any case.
The problem is that the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance stands for everything and therefore for nothing—one can't be all things for all voters and still hope to retain a distinct identity and appeal.
The BJP has proven this time and again. Rightly or wrongly, it stands for something which distinguishes it from the rest of the pack—aggressive nationalism, unapologetic majoritarianism, authoritarian governance, naked Hindutva, centralised unitarianism.
What you see is what you get. There is no confusion in the minds of the voters as to what they can expect.
The INDIA bloc, on the other hand, is a smorgasbord of half-baked and contrary (if not competing) dishes and leaders, a veritable dog's breakfast. What would you choose?
INDIA has to narrow down its menu to just five or six predominant issues—not 300-point manifestos—and then develop unanimity on them, offer the voter a table d'hôte instead of a buffet.
In fact, take on the BJP's own winning menu of majoritarianism, etc., and repeatedly question its deficiencies, unconstitutional underpinnings, anti-citizen implications, unaccountability, trappings of bhakti (faith or religiosity), their effects on unemployment, inflation and increasing inequality.
Discard the losing strategy of name-calling, dependence on freebies, Adani and Ambani, failed foreign policy, competing Hinduism. Old whine in old (or even new) bottles just doesn't work in the 'New India' that Narendra Modi has fashioned.
This appears too much like rank opportunism and will cut no ice with the voter. Take a stand.
After all, 50 per cent of even the Hindu voters are not comfortable with the BJP's violent and hate-filled religious agenda—show them that a balance can be struck without any appeasement of any religion.
Confront Hindutva; don't co-opt it in some sanitised form. The Kamal Nath type of Hanuman bhakti convinces no one, nor does the Mamata Banerjee type of minority pandering. In this respect, it is creditable that the Karnataka government has announced that it is rolling back the ban on hijab imposed by the previous BJP govt. Promise more of the same, whether it is recalling the bulldozers or rescinding the halal ban.
It doesn't matter whether the Alliance is able to put up single candidates in 400 constituencies or not.
The fact is that the Congress has historically always had a direct contest with the BJP in about 200 parliamentary seats in the North. In 2019, it lost 95 per cent of them. It is these seats which will determine the fate of 2024. If the Congress can win even 40 per cent of them, about 80 seats, it will seal the BJP's fate. The Congress—not just the Alliance as a whole—has to work on these seats, and let the regional parties take care of the others (which they can, if the Grand Old Party stays off their turf).
There is nothing to worry about in the South, it is already lost to the BJP.
The voting universe is not one homogenous entity.
It is divided into different components: women, youth, businessmen, farmers, teachers, government employees.
The Congress and INDIA will have to develop a distinct campaign or product for each of them, and then sell them in a targeted manner—like the BJP does so successfully with its toxic capsules.
Of particular importance is the hitherto ignored first-time-voters (FTV), who constitute anything between 10 per cent and 14 per cent of the electorate, big enough to swing any seat. This segment has many issues—unemployment, leaked exam papers, cuts in government recruitment on a massive scale, tinkering with syllabi, clampdowns on any form of protest— which need to be highlighted.
Similarly, the inability of the Opposition to capture the farmer vote after all that the NDA government has done to them is a singular failure.
Ditto with the women, and with the small business/MSMEs, which have all suffered greatly under this regime.
Not only the wine in the bottle, even some of the labels on it have to be changed. Learn from the BJP's ruthlessness in benching old faces and bringing in new ones.
Granted that the BJP can do so at will because it is Mr. Modi who brings in the votes by the bucketful, not individual candidates who nobody has even heard of. Neither the Alliance nor the Congress can afford this luxury because they don't have a Modi-like Colossus, but they need to take selective chances in some states. The choice—and resounding victory—of Mr. Reddy in Telangana is the proof of the pudding.
The timidity of the status quo mindset has to be replaced with an inventive and risk-taking one if the BJP juggernaut has to be defeated.
The EVM issue is a festering problem which the ECI will not acknowledge and the Supreme Court will not address; it is time to change tack on this.
More affirmative action is needed.
One course is for INDIA-ruled states to announce that they will henceforth conduct panchayat and urban local body elections (over which the state Election Commissions, and not the ECI, have jurisdiction) on the VVPAT model—i.e., the voter slip generated by the EVM will be given to the voter, who will then deposit it in the drop box. Results shall be declared on the basis of physical counting of these VVPAT slips, and not the count recorded in the EVM.
This shall be in line with the resolution recently passed by the INDIA alliance (and the challenge in the Supreme Court by ADR and some civil society activists). It will show that the Opposition is prepared to walk the talk, believes in transparency and respects the voter's right to know how their vote is cast, recorded and counted. This could generate public demand for a similar practice to be followed by other states and may even awaken the ECI from its slumber.
Finally, of course, no amount of backroom strategising or witty Twitter/ Facebook ripostes or angry press briefings can make up for boots on the ground.
The BJP wins because of its grassroots cadres, while the Congress continues to lose because it has too many 'leaders' and not enough foot soldiers.
It was expected that the Bharat Jodo Yatra would remove this deficiency, but that did not happen. This should be ensured with Bharat Jodo Yatra II, which has just been announced.
Winning in 2024 depends on the Congress.
The other INDIA parties will hold their turf, of that I have no doubt. But the Grand Old Party has to be the agent of change—if it cannot reinvent itself, it needs to perish.
That is the law of nature, and of politics also.
The columnist is a retired IAS officer and author of The Deputy Commissioner’s Dog and Other Colleagues. He blogs at avayshukla.blogspot.com. Views are personal.
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