Opposition unity capped at 380 Lok Sabha seats; tactical strategy on agenda at Patna meet
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, June 8: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has spoken of the Opposition bid to stop Prime Minister Narendra Modi bagging a third term. Within the Opposition camp ahead of the much awaited Patna meeting on June 23, the hectic discussion revolves on clear limitations of the grouping, as well as ways the BJP could be held back in the next year’s Lok Sabha elections.
“Initial discussions revolved around finding common purpose on 475 Lok Sabha seats where the Opposition unity could enforce one-on-one contest against the BJP. But reaching such a scale for the Opposition camp will be too ambitious,” said a senior functionary, who is part of the outreach to the Opposition constituents.
The Opposition camp is now excluding the major non-BJP political parties joining hands in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. But the Opposition unity faces a major hurdle in Uttar Pradesh as well where the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is spurning any overture to join the non-BJP camp.
“In Uttar Pradesh, the Opposition unity efforts may yield no result because of the inherent contradictions, and also for the fact that the combined non-BJP parties lack the necessary social base to take on the saffron outfit,” said a senior JD (U) functionary.
Incidentally, the BSP, which was the major gainer in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections out of the pre-poll alliance with the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal, is now busy building the party by silently working on a social engineering to revive party’s appeal among the Muslims.
The leading movers of the Opposition unity are also not counting Gujarat in their scheme of things on the grounds that the state will not be receptive to the anti-Modi platform. Uttar Pradesh (80) and Gujarat (26) account for 106 Lok Sabha seats, while Odisha (21), Telangana (17), and Andhra Pradesh (25) together have a tally of 59 parliamentary constituencies. Thus, the Opposition unity is now holding discussion for tactical strategies which can help them in hurting the prospects of the BJP in the remaining 380 Lok Sabha seats.
In the North-east also, the Opposition unity is facing limitations, as the smaller parties invariably associated with the ruling party at the Centre, and they too are being counted as fence-sitters.
“The Opposition parties will need to work out strategies where the constituents can pin down the BJP in about 370-75 Lok Sabha seats by ensuring that the votes are not split and there is a cohesion in the campaign agenda,” added the JD (U) functionary.
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