Disquiet in RSS, BJP at prospect of facing united Opposition in 2024 polls

Speaking at a conclave of his party in Patna on Saturday, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar said that the BJP’s tally in the Lok Sabha could be reduced to no more than 50 in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This came just ahead of his intended outreach to Opposition leaders.

It was a remarkable assertion coming from the veteran leader, known to refrain from making such predictions or indulging in any kind of speculation games, and it would certainly have rattled the BJP.

Nitish has made it clear that the prime task before the Opposition was to unite and come under one umbrella to ensure the BJP’s defeat. He has downplayed any talk of being a prime ministerial candidate and asserted that his only goal is to work for uniting the Opposition to unseat the BJP from power.

However, it is also important for the Opposition parties to recognise that they need to foil the vicious design of the BJP to polarise the electorate and contaminate the people’ mind. Moreover, PM Narendra Modi and his senior colleagues would be well aware of the threat a united Opposition would pose to their leadership.

After successfully pitting one Maratha against another in Maharashtra, the Modi-Shah duo would surely be planning a similar strategy in UP and Bihar. One way would be to try and vertically split the OBC and Dalits along caste and sub-caste lines.

Now, RSS leaders are all for capturing political power through election, but they are not in sync with Modi-Shah’s style of capturing power. Most of the RSS leaders do not like to open their mouth in public. They hold the view that the vulgar display of money power and muscle power and purchasing the legislators have tarnished the image of the Sangh and its affiliates.

A senior RSS leader conceded that they would certainly like to win elections, but not at the cost of the image of the organisation. He holds that Nitish would not have left the NDA but for Modi-Shah who alienated him through their machinations. He argued that Nitish left the company of Lalu Yadav in 2017 and returned to the NDA fold. Instead of analysing his moves in proper perspective, they started plotting against him, planting Nitish’s own man to try and split his party and dethrone him.

He had one strong and valid question: do these two leaders believe that most of the turncoats who joined the BJP after Modi became the PM would remain loyal to the party even after it loses power? Ironically, their number is substantial in the party. If they can desert the party which groomed them and taught them the basics of politics, they would not hesitate at all to desert the BJP.

As for Nitish, the move to split the JD(U) in Manipur has infuriated him to a great extent. At the national meet of the JD(U), when party chief Lalan Singh accused the BJP of using money power to poach legislators, a visibly angry Nitish said, “Is it proper? Is it constitutional? Is it in line with established norms?”

“The BJP leaders have been resorting to this everywhere. Hence all parties must unite in 2024 for a positive mandate. When we were in NDA, they (BJP) gave our MLAs nothing. Now they have been won over,” he added.

Besides various challenges that Nitish has been facing, the Godi Media has launched a vile campaign against him, evidently at the directive of the BJP leadership. The move aims at creating a false impression amongst the people that the Opposition is badly divided.

(IPA Service)

Views are personal