Commenting on the Lok Sabha prospects of the opposition alliance in the upcoming election, Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday predicted that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will emerge as the single-largest party in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
However, the senior politician also claimed that BJP’s numbers can be brought down to a level where its allies may no longer be willing to support the party and may instead back the Opposition.
“I still expect that the BJP will emerge as the single-largest party. But I do believe their numbers can be brought down to a level where their potential allies required to form a government may no longer be willing to ally with them and may be willing to ally with us. So we have to give it a try,” the Congress veteran said while speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) in Kozhikode on Saturday.
On the seat-sharing talks between the alliance partners of the INDIA bloc, Tharoor said he hopes to have “sufficient agreements” in as many states as possible so that “preventable defeats” can be avoided. He also highlighted that the decision shall be taken in accordance with the political nature of different states.
Some states might reach an agreement among all the opposition parties and have a single candidate against the BJP, while in another state, there might be two or three candidates. In such cases, “the voter has to choose the person they consider would best represent them”, the Congress leader noted.
He pointed out that in Kerala, it is “almost impossible to imagine the two major opponents here of the INDIA alliance, CPI(M) and the Congress, ever agreeing on seat-sharing”. At the same time, in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, the CPI, CPI(M), Congress and DMK “are all allied together and there is no debate, no dispute”.
Tharoor added, “That’s the best thing they can do, and if it so happens, and there is enough divergence of views, maybe the BJP candidate will win. But that’s democracy in our first-past-the-post system”. The most important thing that one needs to remind the people of this country is to vote for the best person in their constituency, he said.
He also said that India is a diverse country and he is perfectly prepared to live with the situation where they don’t have a “100 per cent agreement in 100 per cent of the states”.