Can a federal front minus Congress take off as a challenger to the BJP in 2024? Well, attempts and arrangements for it have begun with Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee meeting leaders like Sharad Pawar, Aditya and Uddhav Thackeray, apart from inducting faces from parties like Congress and BJP.
But will this be enough considering the limited appeal and acceptance of Trinamool beyond Bengal where it has scrambled to power for the third consecutive time, bettering its vote percentage and seat shares? However, mistaking it as a referendum on the electorate’s part does carry the potential to electorally alter the prospects of TMC eyeing for gains in states like Goa and Tripura with Congress on a downside.
Mamata didi shouldn’t forget that BJP had won 19 of the 42 parliamentary seats in Bengal in the 2019 parliamentary elections and the same can prevail as for her planned political arithmetics and ambitions taking a hit with psephologist Prashant Kishor effectively mentoring, aiding and assisting her party’s rank, file and cadre.
I am of the opinion that for the opposition to retrieve and revive its base and constituency it is important to forge a consensus on key issues impacting and hitting the common and ordinary alike from pandemic to healthcare, thus, offering an occasion and opportunity to willfully engage with those on receiving end.
Rather than episodic it will have to be routinised if the opposition were to give the ruling BJP a taste of its money which in the absence of a tactical understanding with a national party like Congress looks futile. Oversmarting the incumbent asks for more than just rhetoric and propaganda which Narendra Modi and his allies can better boast and handle, a fact which the opposition shouldn’t let go off its hands.