The road to formation of new government
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: June 06, 2024 -

Regardless of the efforts being made by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Initiative (INDIA), an alliance of the opposition parties, to unseat him; in all likelihood, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to be sworn in to the high office of the country for the third consecutive term.

As politics has come to be regarded as a game of numbers and nothing more, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in a better position with the required numerical strength on his side at the moment.

Even if the people of India have denied the verdict of giving an absolute majority to any single political party in the just concluded 18th Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) managed to bag 294 seats in the 543-member lower house of the Indian Parliament, which is 22 seats more than the magic figure of 272 required for staking claim to form the government.

As a third consecutive term in office after six decades is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party men had been working hard and eyeing for all along in this election, it is very unlikely for them to give up that easily just because their party is short of 32 seats to form the government on its own.

The only thing they have to do now is to reach out to leaders of their political allies, more particularly, Chandrababu Naidu of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal United (JDU) in the Hindi heartland Bihar, who now hold the key to the doors of power in New Delhi.

However, this may be easier said than done as neither Chandrababu Naidu nor Nitish Kumar have been the most reliable political partners and keeping its allies in jovial mood is something that the BJP has forgotten to do since the 2019 general elections when it alone won 303 seats and relegated the allies to the background.

Nonetheless, in his 'victory speech' to the nation delivered from the headquarters of BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given more than enough hints of his willingness to bend the knee now for the sake of remaining in power when he thanked not only Nitish Kumar, but also Chandrababu Naidu.

Despite the notoriety of the two politicians who had no qualms of walking in and out of both the opposition and ruling alliances over one issue or another in the past, Prime Minister Narendra Modi knew it very well the 16 seats won by TDP and the 12 seats won by JDU, which added 28 seats to the tally of NDA are too precious to be lured away by the opposition INDIA bloc, which is also trying to cobble together numbers required to form the government.

However, it would be still an uphill task for the opposition alliance to muster the required numerical strength for forming the new government even if it succeeded in drawing the two 'kingmakers' on its side.

Whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi lives up to the assurance of "Centre will not leave any stone unturned for their development" given to the people of the four states including Andhra Pradesh that went to assembly polls simultaneously with the Lok Sabha election or the unqualified praise of "Under Nitish babu, the NDA fared well in Bihar" did the trick is yet to be seen but the bait laid out has been too enticing for any ambitious politician to refuse.

This is a fact which the opposition alliance is also aware of and any offer better than the one made by the ruling alliance to such opportunist politicians would raise question on its integrity.

Even as both the ruling and the opposition alliances have been caught in a fix, none should forget the simple fact that it is a watershed moment and people have made clear what they want through their verdict.

That is, regardless of whether in power or not, political parties should understand the aspiration of the people and work accordingly.

No sweet without sweat, it's as simple as that.