What The Chances Are Of An Anti-Modi Alliance Defeating The BJP In 2019

A series of Bypoll losses and disenchanted NDA allies make the BJP suddenly look vulnerable in the run-up to Lok Sabha 2019. But even if the simple arithmetic of an anti-modi alliance favours the opposition, can it survive its own contradictions?

- Kaushik Deka

On March 9, United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi thundered at the India Today Conclave in Mumbai: “We will not let the BJP come to power in 2019.” To her detractors, that sounded like overconfidence at a time when her party has been reduced to ruling three states and one Union territory. Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains the most charismatic political leader across the spectrum, and aided by the mean election machine BJP president Amit Shah has built, the Bharatiya Janata Party has won 12 new states in the past four years. They have conquered new frontiers—Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Tripura. In contrast, the Congress could not even form a government in Manipur, Goa and Meghalaya, where it had emerged as the single largest party.

It’s not just the Congress that feels threatened by an expanding BJP—now in or sharing power in 19 states—several other regional forces, such as the Samaj wadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, are facing an existential crisis. It is this desperation to stay relevant that has led to even inorganic alliances between bitter rivals. Sonia’s assertion, in fact, comes out of the sharp political developments in the first three months of the penultimate year to the 2019 general election. In January, National Democratic Alliance partner Shiv Sena declared it would go it alone in the Lok Sabha election next year. Two months later, another ally, the Telugu Desam Party, severed ties with the NDA. Meanwhile, the BJP lost bypolls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Before these defeats—nine out of 10 Lok Sabha bypolls since 2014—the party survived a close contest against the Congress in December in Modi’s home state Gujarat.