It’s not even halfway through the first month of 2019, and election season is in full bloom in India. This past week, the ruling BJP sounded the poll bugle during its national executive meeting at Delhi’s Ram Lila Maidan, that saw over 12,000 party leaders at all levels in attendance.
In the foodie hub of Pandara Park in Lutyens Delhi, BJP leaders prior to the grand conclave were spotted huddling around large vats of phirni and kulfis, their winter wear eclectic and a dead giveaway -- winter is decidedly a “north of the Vindhyas” affair but at the conclave the mood was combative and PM Modi, in his opening remarks, facing a sea of party workers, recalled the beginnings of the party in two rooms.
But back to the heat of electioneering, the largest state of Uttar Pradesh saw a unique, and some would say opportunistic, alliance between bitter rivals Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. Electoral combat is but natural in the world’s largest democracy, but the intense dislike between the supremos of the two parties is personal.
In 1995, Mayawati, the head of the BSP, was assaulted in a guest house where she was holding a meeting when the short-lived alliance between the two had failed. In the course of the attack, casteist and sexual abuses were hurled at her and in a twist, the knight in shining armour on that fateful day turned out to be a BJP leader, who whisked her out of the guest house to safety.
Since then, Mayawati has justifiably claimed that the SP is a party of hoodlums and their contests have been pitched and acrimonious. Hence their alliance which has taken many by surprise has also revealed the extent to which parties are willing to go to challenge the Modi juggernaut. In recent memory, this is an unprecedented move, although strategic understandings on chosen seats have been the norm between rivals.
The murmurings of a grand alliance to challenge Modi have been in talks and in the works almost since he took office and won successive state elections -- hence, these new permutations and combinations are unsurprising. However, what has been intriguing is the side lining of Rahul Gandhi and Congress, especially after the recent electoral wins in three states, where Congress won back power after years.
The BSP supremo was clear in her press conference about why she saw Congress as a liability, its corruption and the fact that its votes were non-transferable didn’t make it an ideal partner, she said. Her alliance partner Akhilesh Yadav, who had formed an ill-fated alliance with Congress, received a drubbing in that election and has had his own experience with this non-transferable vote.
Down south in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the third front seems to be taking shape. In recent assembly elections in the new state of Telangana, the Congress-led coalition, or “maha gathbandhan,” was wiped out, bolstering the aspirations of regional parties in view of Congress’s inability to be a player in states where regional parties hold sway.
This same logic seems to have seeped into the decision made by the BSP and SP to keep the grand old party out, but for the two family seats of the Gandhis. If the third front does evolve, and the UP partners seemed to have noticed the development in the South, it is quite likely that the contest of 2019 will not be between PM Modi, will be pitched not against the Congress, but against this amoebic cluster of regional parties -- which will fight the party in each state.
As a result, the 2019 contest may be one where regional issues will dominate the narrative and the grand narrative arc or a presidential-style election will need some strategic thinking and communication on behalf of the BJP.
However, the ruling party is already at work, having announced 10% reservation for the more economically-backward sections of society, a long-held demand. Observers say this is but a trailer.
Modi, since his entry into electoral politics, has never lost a direct contest, and he is expected to make some more defining moves in the coming weeks.
All eyes are now trained on the last budget of this government to be delivered next month. And not before long it will be general election this year.
Advaita Kala is an Indian author, screenwriter, and columnist.