SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
The effort was made to ‘pacify the anger’ of middle-class who were waiting with baited breath to hear something for them in this recent budget. The tone of the Prime Minister as well as the Finance Minister made it more obvious that the middle-class needed some support from the government.
This year is expected to set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. As many as nine states are expected to vote in 2023, with the stakes very high for the ruling BJP and the principal Opposition Congress. With an increase in infrastructure funds in the budget, the key word which are likely to play in the upcoming election speeches are ‘infrastructure development’, ‘jobs created’, ‘double engine government’ etc as BJP has more stakes on the table than the opposition parties to perform well during these nine Assembly elections before the 2024 General Elections.
In February-March 2023, three Northeast states - Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland - will be voting. Tripura will be voting for their new government on February 16, while Meghalaya and Nagaland will vote on February 27.
Another north-eastern state Mizoram is expected to go to polls by November.
Presently, the BJP is in power in Tripura with a local ally IPFT, and is a junior partner of regional allies in Nagaland and Meghalaya. In Mizoram, the contest is between the Congress and the ruling Mizo National Front. A special focus will be on Tripura, which the BJP won for the first time in 2018 after defeating the Left government, but is now facing a massive rebellion in the state party ranks.
In South India, the BJP has a foothold in Karnataka which will go to vote in May this year. The electoral battle will primarily involve the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress, with the Janata Dal (Secular) likely to be a major factor in parts of Southern parts of Karnataka. The Congress will aim a return to power after its coalition with the JDS was ousted in 2019. On the other hand, BJP will have to battle growing discontent and rebellion within the party to retain power and incumbency factor.
In India's newest state, the contest in November-December this year is going to be interesting. The new will see Bharat Rashtra Samithi, the new avatar of the erstwhile TRS take on the Congress and the BJP. The K Chandrasekhar Rao-led party is aiming for a larger national role in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and for him it will be a litmus test.
Also, during the same period one of the biggest state in the country Madhya Pradesh is likely to witness a straight contest between the ruling BJP and the principal Opposition Congress. The 2023 electoral battle will come nearly four years after a rebel crisis in the Congress forced Kamal Nath to quit as the Chief Minister. The rebels later enabled BJP’s Shivraj Singh Chauhan to return to power. A win in India’s second-largest state is expected to be a morale booster and redemption for the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. It will be a matter of pride for the BJP as well as the Congress to win in Madhya Pradesh.
For Congress, the stakes are really high in states like Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. Apart these states, the ‘Bharat Jodo’ Yatra led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi showed ‘good’ response in Kerala and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir also and Congress expects good returns even though the party’s national spokesperson Jairam Ramesh has mentioned clearly that ‘Bharat Jodo’ Yatra was not campaign for the 2024 General Elections.
At the recent National Executive Meet, BJP’s President JP Nadda expressed that 2023 is a crucial year and the party has to fight to win nine Assembly elections this year and following that the General Elections in 2024. This was crucial as the party has also recently lost in Himachal Pradesh, the home state of BJP President and Delhi municipal elections.
