In this year of general elections, there is a certain inevitability about Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a third term in office. The biggest contributor to this sense of the ‘die having been cast’ is India’s downbeat Opposition. It has fanned triumphalism within the ruling party’s ranks. The latter’s latest slogan ‘Teesri baar, Modi sarkar’ sums up the optimism. But with the onset of the New Year, there is still much that the Opposition can do to lift its prospects.

Broadly speaking, the Opposition will have to get two things right: an alternative vision and a credible set of faces. Meeting just one of these conditions will not do. On the face of it, Election 2024 appears to be a contest between unequals where the BJP has an advantage in terms of resources, strategy, ideological muscle and indeed, the popularity of the PM candidate. A party that leaves nothing to chance, it is not averse to investigating agencies nailing its political opponents. But to pronounce that the Elections-2024 are an open and shut case would perhaps be a little premature. There are several imponderables at work. Among them is the preference, if not yearning, for novelty; this has been borne out by results of State elections in recent times. From the thumping majority delivered to the debutants Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) in Mizoram to the emergence of Congress’s A Revanth Reddy in Telangana or even the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s victories in Delhi and Punjab Assembly elections, it is clear that newcomers who promise a fresh vision are in with a good chance. The BJP has sensed this undercurrent, and counters this by infusing dynamism in its campaign. It has constantly improvised with ‘Achche Din’ in 2014 and by unveiling a broad-canvas campaign revolving around Ram Mandir, Article 370 and fresh promise of ‘Amrit Kaal’. The persistent targeting of AAP, arguably a novel and relatively fresher political alternative than the Congress at the national level, reflects the realisation that novelty poses a threat.

The Opposition has sought to club its fragmented voter base through the INDIA coalition. However, it would need much more than simple arithmetic of the combined vote to stall the BJP’s ideological rath, being propelled by the PM’s charisma. If the Opposition’s leading lights are to display authoritarian tendencies and misuse the State apparatus to target political opponents, as they do in the States that they now rule, they cannot authentically claim to offer either novelty or vision. An alternative socio-economic vision, as opposed to a reactive campaign, could yet turn 2024 into a David-versus-Goliath battle where the voters are open to trying out a fresh challenger. But a campaign based entirely on belittling the PM’s popularity on the lines of Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Chowkidaar chor hai’ slogan in the 2019 elections will only strengthen the PM’s support base.

The only play against the BJP is to project a rational, sober, authentic vision, with credible people at the helm. The Opposition has six months to do that.

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