Dear Editor,
The mercurial rise of BJP in India as a formidable national party and its rapid spread across the states and union territories is monumental in the history of post independent India that has made headlines around the globe. While BJP and PM Modi have to be heavily credited for achieving this great height in national and regional politics; one cannot under estimate the importance of the presence of a valid and strong opposition for the democratic health of the nation. An idea for a third front has been floated in the national political space with several major regional parties discussing opportunities regarding joining efforts to fight the ruling party jointly to avoid erosion of assembly as well as parliamentary seats across India. Although on paper the idea is great; however to bring divergent parties with opposite political views under one umbrella will be extremely challenging.
Even if they win; how well their government would rum is highly questionable? Rainbow coalitions in the past have failed miserably and suffered from policy paralysis as they have to cater to too many heavy weight politicians and their personal agenda. What is the future of India’ opposition going to be is therefore highly uncertain and lacks leadership, vision as well as appropriate weight and dimension to counteract BJP’s exponential rise in the political space of India. Meanwhile for BJP it is not the opposition but internal feuds and exceptionally vocal, non-performing leaders, central and state level ministers and chief ministers are major headache for retaining their old base in the Hindi belt. The party managers need to take these thorns out to facilitate their winning chariot to ride smoothly across India. I anticipate the parliamentary election will be brought forward by BJP in 2018 instead of 2019 to take advantage of their current popularity and high level enthusiasm among their party workers. The rival opposition is currently in disarray and is the right time for BJP to have the national election to get back in power. Longer they wait, bigger will be their losses.
Yours
Saikat Kumar Basu,
Canada