India will be all eyes as INDIA meets

Today, 63 representatives of as many as 28 political parties - two up from the 26 which attended the Bengaluru opposition meet - will put their heads together to formulate ways and means to defeat the BJP-led national Democratic Alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

On the agenda of the high profile meet in Mumbai will be the selection of a logo and resolving seat sharing so that there are no hiccups when the polls are here eight months from now.

Things are obviously not going to be easy for there are already rumblings over the PM candidate of the joint opposition – the Congress no doubt is upping the ante for its leader, Rahul Gandhi to be the PM candidate and has already put him prominently in posters brought out ahead of the INDIA meet.

There are also reports doing the rounds that the Grand Old Party may push for party national president Mallikarjun Kharge as the national convener of the INDIA alliance even as others contend that Nitish Kumar, the CM of Bihar, is best suited for the post.

The national convener will inevitably be a hot favourite for the PM’s post if the INDIA alliance manages to secure a majority defeating the BJP-led NDA in the elections.

On Wednesday a day ahead of the INDIA meet, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar was asked who the PM face of the opposition is, and replied in his customary style that they had many PM faces while the BJP had only one (a reference to PM Narendra Modi).

The friction on this issue is palpable with Priyanka Kakkar, the spokesperson of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), a formidable part of INDIA, asserting that she would like to see Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal as the PM choice of the coalition. Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata Banerjee - there is obviously no dearth of PM faces for the opposition but who would be most suited to take on the Modi-Shah juggernaut is the big question.

The other vexed issue which the opposition will have to discuss threadbare is seat sharing. While there is no doubt that the dominant party in each state will take the major proportion of seats - like the DMK in TN, the SP in UP, RJD in Bihar and TMC in Bengal - seat sharing is sure to prove to be the biggest challenge for these parties when they have been traditional rival in many states.

The situation is tricky in states like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Punjab and Delhi where a three-cornered contest could be on the cards.

The Congress will have to consider shedding its antipathy for parties like the YSR Congress in AP, BRS in Telangana, the Leftists in Kerala and the AAP in Delhi and Punjab and maybe ensure a subtle understanding with them so that anti-BJP votes are not split.

INDIA will also have to formulate a comprehensive campaign strategy to pillory the NDA on rising inflation, joblessness, hate crimes, communalism, merciless targeting of political opponents, dictatorial trends, and grabbing of land on our borders by China.

It will also have to provide an attractive alternative with promises which can be fulfilled like the Congress did in Karnataka to romp home in the Assembly polls much to the chagrin of the BJP.

INDIA’s Mumbai meet is no doubt the stepping stone to the emergence of a national alternative to the BJP - something which has been missing from the political landscape in the past nine years.

And if that happens, the battle for the honours in 2024 is sure to go down to the wire.