BJP steps up efforts to build alliance before '24 elections

NEW DELHI: On Tuesday, former Karnataka chief minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader BS Yediyurappa said that his party and the former prime minister HD Dewe Gowda-headed Janata Dal (Secular) would fight together against the ruling Congress in Karnataka in the future

- Chetan Chauhan and Sunetra Choudhury

Also on Tuesday, in Lucknow, moves were afoot to induct Om Prakash Rajbhar, an ally of the Samajwadi Party in the 2022 assembly elections, into the Yogi Adityanath cabinet to broaden to social base of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the state.

And the Union government (also on Tuesday) announced Y-category security for Santosh Majhi, son of Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM) leader, Jitam Ram Majhi, who is likely to join the NDA. Santosh Majhi resigned from the Nitish Kumar cabinet before the June 23 opposition meeting in Patna and the ruling grand alliance in Bihar accused his father of spying for the BJP. The HAM's return to the NDA is expected to boost the coalition's chances in central parts of Bihar mainly in Jehanabad and Gaya districts.

While many of these events have been weeks, perhaps months in the making, there is a discernible acceleration in the BJP's efforts to build an alliance ahead of the 2024 national elections and coming in the wake of the weekend's events that saw a section of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) lawmakers led by Ajit Pawar joining the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra, it is clear that the party that has emerged the political hegemon over the past decade is working to a script.

Many parties are eager to join the NDA and the NCP has just taken the lead, Union Information and Broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur said in Kangra on Tuesday.

HT reported on June 10, that the BJP was working on a plan to rebuild the NDA by winning back old allies such as the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and wooing new ones. Its moves come even as the Opposition is trying to put together a united front, or at least arrive at some kind of understanding to take on the BJP.