New Delhi: The poll battle had been over but the war against BJP was on, the Congress strategists said on Wednesday, amid attempts by the INDIA bloc to cross the half-way mark of 272/543 needed to form a government.
“The battle is over, but the war is on. The Modi government had tied the hands and feet of the Congress and the opposition and asked us to swim in the electoral ocean. The opposition swam through. Now the challenge is to cross the ocean. The people have untied our hands and feet. The battle is won, the war is on,” AICC functionary Gurdeep Sappal said ahead of the INDIA bloc meeting on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the INDIA bloc won 232/543 seats against 293 of the NDA. Individually, the Congress won 99 Lok Sabha seats while the BJP got 240 seats. Yet, the Congress managers said the mandate was against PM Modi who should withdraw from the prime ministerial race and launched multi-layered efforts to stop the premier from coming to power for a third term.
“The mandate is certainly against PM Modi. He proclaimed he was not biological but a divine being. The INDIA bloc meeting is slated for Wednesday evening and all strategies will be discussed there and final decision would be taken. But, before that, if some regional parties were making an effort on their own to secure more numbers for the opposition alliance, there was no harm in doing so. After all, we must keep all our options open,” AICC secretary in charge of Gujarat Ram Kishan Ojha told ETV Bharat.
To form a government, the INDIA bloc was short of 61 seats which could come from NDA allies JD-U, TDP, HAM and other smaller parties, said party insiders adding that efforts were on to rope in the regional parties.
While Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy was said to be in touch with TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu, NCP-SP veteran Sharad Pawar and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav were talking to JD-U leader Nitish Kumar, who has the reputation of switching sides if a good deal was offered to him, the Prime Minister’s chair in this case.
“Nitish Kumar is certainly not comfortable with the BJP. If the NDA comes to power, he would certainly strike a good bargain with the BJP. But such bargains may not be okay with Modi who is not used to pressures of coalition politics. Also, there is no scope of a deputy prime ministerial post for Nitish in BJP. Hence, his unease is good news for the INDIA bloc which has adopted a flexible approach this time and is ready to accommodate him as deputy prime minister. This would be the last such opportunity before Nitish Kumar. As far as the risk of giving him a key post is concerned, if he ditches the opposition alliance at a later date, Nitish Kumar would only end up diminishing his political stature. The Congress will not lose anything,” Bihar Congress working president Kaukab Qadri told ETV Bharat.
“The mandate for the INDIA bloc has come from the marginalized sections of society who were miffed with the PM’s divisive agenda and wanted to teach a lesson to him. They would not like to see him gain power again. At this juncture, it is more important for us to keep Modi out of power,” he said.
According to Qadri, one key reason why Nitish Kumar had left the BJP in 2022 and joined the Congress-RJD-Left alliance was attempts by the BJP to dent the ally in Bihar. “That is the operating style of the BJP. They strike alliances with regional parties and then finish them off gradually. Like JD-U, the SAD in Punjab, BJD in Odisha and TDP and YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh also suffered after supporting the BJP. Today, many of them may be having second thoughts,” he said.
Party insiders said irrespective of the outcomes of the efforts to cobble up opposition numbers, an anti-Modi stance was a good strategy to keep the saffron party on the tenterhooks.
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