India: BJP's outreach for a strong alliance in 2024 purely strategic

In the run up to next year’s Lok Sabha polls, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided not to take any chances and is reaching out to old allies and potential new ones in a bid to revive the National Democratic Alliance or the NDA. The NDA turned 25 last month, so on paper it stills exists. But in practice, it has been reduced to a name only.

With allies on their side, the BJP numbers were further strengthened in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019. The BJP garnered 37.4% of the votes in those elections. The NDA as a whole received nearly 45% of the vote, which is higher than what the NDA got in 2014 at 38%.

The BJP however was the overwhelmingly dominant force and it was clear they would call the shots. Its leadership is also not exactly the best at dealing with coalition partners and accommodating others.

Stitching up its coalition

Indeed, that was reflected in how poorly the BJP treated its junior partners in the past leading to nearly 15 parties walking out of the NDA since Mr. Modi became Prime Minister in 2014.

This included ugly break ups with old friends like the Akali Dal in Punjab over the controversial farm laws, Nitish Kumar’s JD U in Bihar, Uddhav Thackeray and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, which walked out of the NDA some years ago.

There is trouble with the Haryana ally the JJP at the moment. Now, both erstwhile allies - the Akalis and the TDP - are being wooed again by the BJP.

BJP leaders are anticipating losses in Hindi heartland states and other states like Maharashtra where a bypoll in Kasba Peth saw the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi or the MVA of the Congress-Uddhav Sena and NCP defeat the BJP- Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena combine after 28 years. Opposition unity, if done right, could prove to be a challenge for BJP

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When the BJP lost several allies, many political analysts said Modi and Amit Shah did not care because this fit in with the BJP’s expansionist agenda at the time and that they were shedding unwanted baggage.

But clearly something has changed today. The BJP’s immediate keenness to re-engage with smaller parties seems to have been driven by the huge defeat they faced in Karnataka.

Within weeks, senior party leaders briefed journalists covering the party about the Prime Minister himself pushing for tie ups with other parties even as the opposition tries to stitch up its own coalition to take on the BJP.

Change of heart on allies

‘The Indian Express’ reported how the BJP was shaken by the recent Jalandhar bypoll in Punjab, which used to be a Congress stronghold. This time, the AAP won the seat with over 34 per cent of the votes while the Akali Dal was at 17.9 percent and the BJP at 15 percent of the votes.

The fact that the BJP and Akali Dal together almost equalled what the AAP got, shook the party and it was felt that it would be prudent to make amends with the Badals.

The state elections in the country’s North East earlier this year would also have been a wake up call on alliances. Despite putting so much political capital into the region, it is the regional forces that dominated in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

But there is a bigger reason for the BJP’s change of heart on allies. It is the math. The party knows it will be difficult for it to repeat its performance in some states in 2024 where it has already peaked.

Anticipating losses in Hindi heartland 

Party leaders are anticipating losses in Hindi heartland states and other states like Maharashtra where a bypoll in Kasba Peth saw the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi or the MVA of the Congress-Uddhav Sena and NCP defeat the BJP- Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena combine after 28 years. Opposition unity, if done right, could prove to be a challenge.

The BJP has also reached out to the JD S in Karnataka. Statements by leaders of the JDS have hinted at a tie up for 2024. In Andhra Pradesh, while Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP has been warming up to the BJP, the party appears to be keeping its options open maintaining good ties with Jagan Reddy and his party, the YSRCP, as well.

The BJP is also looking at tie ups with smaller parties in UP and Bihar. In Tamil Nadu however just days after Amit Shah’s high profile visit, the state BJP chief K Annamalai has triggered a huge row with ally, the AIADMK, by seeming to criticise the late AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa. This doesn’t augur well for the party as it seeks expansion in the south.

The BJP will have to come down from its high horse in order to have meaningful alliances. From a slogan of Congress-Mukt Bharat (Congress free India), the party had moved on to declaring all regional outfits as the political enemy.

BJP President JP Nadda’s remark last year that all regional parties were dynasties that would perish, while only the BJP would survive, did not go down well.

In fact it sowed the spark for already worsening ties with the JDU in Bihar at the time. The comments drew alarm amongst regional parties across the board- that the BJP was out to destroy them all.

2024 may just become the battle of the alliances.