After an almost hour-long closed-door meeting between Mamata, Akhilesh, and Samajwadi Party national vice president Kiranmoy Nanda, the SP chief announced that his party will work together with others to take on the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls. Nanda further announced an anti-BJP front, stating that ‘opposition unity’ is the only tool to stop the saffron party in the general elections. He also said that the SP’s aim is to bolster the regional parties, making them strong enough to defeat the BJP in next year’s national electoral battle.
The development sparked a fresh debate in the political circles of the country’s most populous state–Uttar Pradesh–as similar efforts failed to dent the BJP in 2019. Political experts, however, offered mixed views on the idea of an anti-BJP front. Some said it may work, while others suggested that instead of focusing on regional parties, the SP should strengthen its ground-level team to give a tough fight to the BJP.
“The idea of forming an anti-BJP front is not new to UP, as it has witnessed a similar arrangement in the 2019 Lok Sabha Polls when the mahagathbandhan was formed,” said Shashikant Pandey, head of the department of political science at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow.
The mahagathbandhan or grand alliance was formed in the run-up to the 2019 general elections under the leadership of SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, and Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh. The grand alliance was anti-Congress and anti-BJP. “Of the total 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP, the grand alliance left 2 for Congress’s Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi to whom the BSP had declared its support. “But the arrangement failed to make any difference in the last Lok Sabha polls as the BJP led by Narendra Modi managed to bag 51.19 per cent of the vote share. And this was against the mahagathbandhan’s 39.23 per cent. The Congress managed to score a mere 6.41 per cent votes. The BJP bagged 62 seats whereas the mahagathbandhan got 15 seats in all,” pointed out Pandey.
In such a situation, he said, opting for the same formula or technique to overpower the BJP is risky. However, Pandey added that other factors may alter the equations. “It is not always a wise thing to apply the same formula especially when it has already failed once. But, there are factors that might play spoilsport for the BJP this time. The floating voters could bruise the BJP. Other factors like Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, his disqualification from Parliament, and issues like growing unemployment and inflation could also create trouble for the BJP,” he added.
SK Dwivedi, former head of the department of political science at the University of Lucknow, though feels it’s time for the Samajwadi Party to do some soul-searching. “It should learn from the BJP, the way they introspect and check on their flaws,” he said.
Despite the mixed reactions, the Samajwadi Party says that opposition unity is the only way ahead. “At times when our Constitution and democracy are at stake, ‘opposition unity front’ is perhaps the only path to overpower the BJP in the 2024 elections. And in this fight against the BJP, the regional parties, especially the SP, will play a pivotal role in the days to come,” Kiranmoy Nanda told News18.
Nanda said efforts are on to form an opposition bloc of all parties that are fighting the BJP in their respective regions or states. “Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, Telangana’s K Chandrashekar Rao, Tamil Nadu’s MK Stalin and others are all fighting the BJP in their own different ways. The aim is to bring them together and form a front. I am sure this will take shape in the days to come,” said Nanda.
Akhilesh Yadav also held a press conference on Sunday in which he said that national parties should support the regional outfits in the fight against the BJP. He announced a special campaign to strengthen booth-level teams to bolster the party on the ground. “We would also be roping in women, carrying out door-to-door campaigns, and creating awareness among the people. We will tell them about the achievements during the SP government and will also talk about the false promises the BJP made in its election manifesto that were never fulfilled,” said Akhilesh.
Read all the Latest Politics News here
Comments
0 comment