Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal bowled a googly in the INDIA bloc meeting held on December 19, proposing Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's name as the Opposition coalition's Prime Ministerial face.
Reports say 12 of the 26 parties supported the move while the rest were less enthusiastic. Kharge himself said the bloc should focus on winning the 2024 elections first; the PM decision can wait until afterwards, he suggested.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has attacked the INDIA bloc many times, commenting that they lack niti, niyati and netritva (policy, intention, leadership).
Mamata Banerjee and Kejriwal, who are among the top mass leaders of the alliance, are aware that in an increasingly presidential style of elections, the INDIA bloc will need to project a face.
According to the Axis My India exit poll, the prime ministerial candidate was the most important consideration while voting in the 2019 elections, for 37% of the respondents (the highest). If the INDIA bloc doesn't have a PM face, it risks excluding this big chunk of voters from its target addressable market.
The argument of Mamta Banerjee and Kejriwal in favour of Kharge is that he is the senior-most leader of the alliance and that he belongs to the Dalit community, which accounts for a significant 17% of the population of the country.
His nomination could consolidate the community's votes in favour of the INDIA bloc, especially denting Mayawati's BSP, which bagged 3.7% votes across India in 2019. Eighty-four seats are reserved for the Scheduled Caste community in Lok Sabha - the BJP-led NDA won 54, the Congress-led UPA 11, and regional parties 19.
While the NDA received the support of 41% of the Scheduled Castes in 2019, the Congress-led UPA won 28%, the lowest lead that the NDA enjoyed over the UPA for any caste group.
That said, one cannot miss the political undertones in Mamata and Kejriwal's decision to propose Kharge's name. They have attempted to kill two birds with one stone.
They have virtually eliminated the chances of the Congress party proposing Rahul Gandhi or Priyanka Gandhi's name as the prime ministerial face of the alliance, while at the same time accepting the Congress's prime position and natural claim to lead the alliance.
Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee are not comfortable with Rahul Gandhi as the PM face, as they feel he lacks the charisma to take on Modi. Also, Rahul Gandhi is far junior to the Trinamool Congress chief and Bengal Chief Minister.
Both the Trinamool and Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) might have apprehended that the Gandhis would prop up Rahul's name citing the increase in his popularity ratings after the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Mamata Banerjee and Kejriwal have also eliminated the chances of regional peers like Nitish Kumar or Akhilesh Yadav either for the post of convenor of the bloc or as the prime ministerial face.
The INDIA bloc has many PM aspirants of almost equal stature in Nitish Kumar, Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, and MK Stalin - all of whom are waiting for their Deve Gowda moment (Deve Gowda became PM in an unexpected turn of events after the 1996 polls). Mamata Banerjee and Kejriwal have literally cancelled each other from the race.
Before the meeting, "Ek Nischay, Ek Nitish (one resolve, one Nitish)" posters came up in Patna. Trinamool workers and leaders have been demanding that their Didi be the presumptive PM. For the Samajwadi Party, the choice is Bhaiyya (Akhilesh Yadav), as Uttar Pradesh sends the maximum number of members to parliament.
After the Congress's disastrous showing in the Hindi heartland in recent state elections, Nitish Kumar, who considers himself the architect of this alliance, may have hoped for a stronger claim to the Convenor's post.
Neither Nitish Kumar nor Lalu Yadav were happy with the Kharge googly and left early, choosing not to stay for the press conference. Lalu Yadav knows that unless Nitish Kumar moves to central politics, his son Tejashwi cannot become Chief Minister of Bihar.
SWOT Of Mallikarjun Kharge
Kharge is an interesting pick for the INDIA bloc's prime ministerial candidate. He has a wealth of experience (more than 50 years) and understands realpolitik. He belongs to a Scheduled Caste community, thus making it an OBC (Other Backward Classes) battle for 2024.
Many believe PM Modi may not be able to attack him as vociferously as he did Rahul, as Kharge could turn it around as an insult to Dalits. He speaks Hindi and has risen the ranks like Modi, thus neutralising the BJP's dynastic pitch.
However, he is not a great orator, unlike Modi, and doesn't have a pan-India appeal, most of his support is limited to Southern India. He is 81 years old, so may not be able to connect with the youth; the 18-35 age category accounts for more than half of the voter base.
In today's era, just naming a Dalit PM face may not bring about the consolidation of votes in favour of any party, due to the complex intersection of caste and class perpetuated by the labharthi politics in the Modi era.