There were many takeaways for the Congress from the monsoon session of Parliament that concluded on Friday. Post-Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party is taking Rahul Gandhi more seriously than it ever did. Prime Minister Narendra Modi intervening twice during his speech must have boosted Gandhi’s self-esteem to no end. His confidence must have gone up by several notches every time his words triggered the Treasury benches.
The Congress seemed to be working to a strategy as it fielded its Dalit faces in the Lok Sabha—Kumari Selja, Charanjit Singh Channi and Praniti Shinde. They made good impressions. Forty-three-year-old Shinde gave an inkling of why many consider her the Congress’ most promising face in Maharashtra. The INDIA bloc looked rock-solid—in the Parliament, at least.
The Treasury benches, however, looked listless. BJP MPs Anurag Thakur and Nishikant Dubey were at their usual rhetorical and provocative best. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was at her combative best. Most of the others went through the motions. The Lok Sabha results seemed to hang thickly in the air.
Agriculture Minister’s show
Overall, there were two big takeaways for me. First, Shivraj Singh Chouhan shone in his new role as Union Agriculture Minister. In a Cabinet packed with former chief ministers who needed rehabilitation—Manohar Lal Khattar, Jitan Ram Manjhi, HD Kumaraswamy, Sarbananda Sonowal—the former Madhya Pradesh CM, Chouhan, was in a different league. His speeches and interventions in the Lok Sabha left even Opposition benches gasping. Think of the agriculture minister reading all Prime Ministers’ addresses from the Red Fort since 1947 and telling the Congress how Jawaharlal Nehru didn’t mention ‘farmer’ in his 15 speeches. For once, the Union Agriculture Minister in the Modi-led government made headlines regularly. Chouhan looked and sounded like someone who didn’t care about being unfairly denied a fifth term as CM because he was convinced that he was meant for bigger things.
The second big takeaway, which is actually central to this column, is how the NDA constituents remained mere curious onlookers whenever BJP MPs got into heated exchanges with the INDIA bloc. While the INDIA bloc reacted in unison, the BJP was left to fight its own battles. The allies’ message to the BJP was: “You mind your own business, we will handle ours.” By the end of the monsoon session—just two months into Modi 3.0—durability of the Fevicol bond in the NDA, as put by Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde, appeared to be subject to future weather conditions. On the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) virtually endorsed the Opposition’s demand to refer it to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for scrutiny and wider consultations. The Janata Dal (United), whose leader and Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh had unequivocally supported the Bill in the Lok Sabha, saw his party leadership frown at his stance later. On Friday, Bihar minister Vijay Choudhary, a confidante of CM Nitish Kumar, endorsed the decision to send the Bill to the JPC, stating that “the apprehension of the minority community about the Bill must be addressed before it’s finalised.”
In a nutshell, the TDP and the JD(U)—whose combined 28 MPs are crucial to the government’s survival—ended up siding with the Opposition on this Bill. Not that the BJP would mind it much. It suits the party that the debate on the waqf property rages on in the run up to the next round of Assembly elections in October-November. What must, however, bother the ruling party is that the discordant voices have started coming way too early into its third term.
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Restless allies
Outside Parliament, too, NDA partners are being assertive. Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has appointed 46 in-charges and 93 observers for 113 Assembly seats in Maharashtra, virtually laying claim on these seats. Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has demanded 80 to 90 seats in the 288-member state Assembly.
If the BJP were to concede to the allies’ demands, it can’t get to contest even 105 seats that it had won in 2019.
Settling these claims of allies would be ticklish for the BJP but the bigger problem is likely to arise after that. With two deputy CMs from different parties aspiring to replace the CM from a third party, it’s in each one’s individual interest to bring the two rivals’ tally down in the next Assembly.
In Karnataka, the NDA is already showing strain. The Janata Dal (Secular) declared to stay out of the BJP’s Mysore-Bengaluru padayatra, only to relent after many BJP leaders called on Kumaraswamy. The ostensible reason for the JD(S)’ first declaration was former BJP MLA Preetham Gowda’s alleged involvement in the distribution of pen drives with sex videos of Kumaraswamy’s nephew, Prajwal Revanna. The real reason, however, was the JD(S)’s reluctance to allow the BJP to expand and consolidate its footprints in the JD(S) stronghold.
Out of the 24 BJP allies that contested the elections, the TDP, JD(U), Shiv Sena, NCP and JD(S)—in addition to Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP)—have larger stakes. That is in terms of their areas of influence, not just in terms of their current Lok Sabha strength. The BJP can’t afford to have uneasy relations with them at the very start of Modi 3.0. Moreover, most of the other NDA partners with one or two MPs have a history of switching alliances. A source with good connections with regional players in the northeast told me that many of the parties depending on the Christian votebank are already growing restless.
BJP big-brotherly approach
Modi-Shah are ostensibly not worried about the durability of the Fevicol bond between the BJP and its allies. Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu needs the Centre to re-build his state, especially the capital city of Amravati, and put down any resistance by Jagan Mohan Reddy. Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav is unlikely to offer the CM chair to Nitish Kumar again. Naidu and Kumar, therefore, have much to gain in Modi’s company. The last Budget was a testimony to that. For now, the trade-off looks balanced. Or so Modi-Shah would think.
They may also think that INDIA bloc, with 237 MPs, is still three MPs short of the BJP’s 240 and that there are so many prime ministerial aspirants in the Opposition camp. Who would want to join an inherently unsteady coalition like that? Their assumption may be plausible to some extent. This must be the reason why the BJP has gone about pursuing its ideological and political agenda, as well as its governance priorities, without bothering about the allies. There is no change in the BJP’s big-brotherly approach, as it hasn’t even set up a formal mechanism to coordinate with its NDA partners.
If the monsoon session was any indicator, the BJP leadership should do a re-think. Nitish Kumar may not bother about his party’s prospects as long as his chair is secure. But Naidu must have a different outlook. His son Nara Lokesh has shown the mettle to step into his father’s shoes any time the latter desires. Naidu would like to hand over to him a more robust TDP, a party that doesn’t have to depend on the crutches of allies. Even in its debacle, the YSR Congress Party secured over 39 per cent votes. Naidu can’t, therefore, afford to be unmindful of minorities’ sentiments.
They have their votebanks, however small or big, to protect. Unless the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir re-establish Modi as the charismatic vote-getter that he was until recently, the BJP would do well to stop acting as if 2024 poll results never came.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
There never was a ‘fevicol bond’ and will never be. This applies to the allies of both the BJP and the Congress.