The I.N.D.I Alliance can learn a lot of lessons from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as far as the seat alliance is concerned. Forging an alliance is not a one-way street. It requires devotion from both the parties. In forging alliance, one party has to lose some political stakes. In Bihar in 2019, the BJP has sacrificed 5 of its sitting seats. In the 2014 Lok Sabha poll, the BJP won 22 seats in Bihar, but in 2019 Lok Sabha poll, the BJP contested on only 17 seats. The BJP accommodated Nitish Kumar’s Janta Dal United (JDU) into the NDA. The BJP gave the JDU 17 Lok Sabha seats to contest within the NDA alliance. At that time, the JDU had only 2 MPs from Nalanda and Purnea Lok Sabha seats. But in spite of these factors, the NDA accommodated the JDU with 17 Lok Sabha seats.
This kind of sacrifice is also being sought among the newly formed I.N.D.I Alliance. In 2024, it is being speculated that the BJP will forge an alliance with the Janta Dal Secular in Karnataka. The JDS is likely to contest on 4 seats while the BJP will have to contend with 24 seats only. Currently, the BJP has 26 MPs from Karnataka, including its Independent MP from Mandya. Like Bihar in 2019, the BJP is likely to sacrifice its winning seats in Karnataka too to the JDS. Though currently, the JDS has only one MP from Karnataka, but the BJP is giving four seats in alliance formation.
Will the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Aam Aadmi Party will share seats in Punjab and NCT of Delhi. Will Mamata Banerjee donate seats to the Communists and the Congress Party in West Bengal? The performance of the Communists and the Congress Party was at its nadir. In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, of course, the Congress party won two seats in West Bengal. In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, the Communists and the Congress Party contested against each other with the exception of Maldaha South and Jadavpur Lok Sabha seats. If we add the vote share of these two parties, even then, on 20 Lok Sabha seats, their vote share is in single digit means less than 10 per cent. On the seats on which the Congress Party and the Communists were contested against each other, the Communists were ahead of the Congress Party on 32 seats. If we add the vote share of the Congress Party and the Communists, even then, we see that they forfeit deposits on 35 seats.
After the Uttar Pradesh 2022 assembly elections, the possibility of the Gandhi family winning the traditional seats of Amethi and Rae Bareilly has become very bleak. The Congress Party got only 142952 votes in the five assembly seats of Amethi Lok Sabha, and it was relegated to the third spot, far behind BJP/NDA and the Samajwadi Party (SP). The BJP got 418700 and SP got 352475 votes on the Amethi seat as per the 2022 UP assembly poll results on the seats fall within the Amethi Lok Sabha seat. The Congress Party got 140706 votes in Rae Bareilly seat, and there, too, the party was far behind the SP and BJP/NDA. The SP got 402179 votes, and BJP/NDA got 381625 votes in the Rae Bareilly seat. In the 2022 UP assembly poll, the INC was trailed by the NOTA on 62 seats. The INC contested on 399 seats. Will Akhilesh Yadav donate seats to the Congress Party considering such conditions of the Congress Party?
