Alliance in UP, Bihar & Maharashtra to dim Modi’s chance in 2019

The Congress is banking strongly on the electoral alliance in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra to dim Narendra Modi's prospects of becoming the Prime Minister again.

Its calculations are that his Bharatiya Janata Party will not be able to get the majority in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections if the alliance in the three states is successful.

The BJP had won as many as 118 of the 168 seats in the three states in its total tally of 282 (now 273 due to its defeat in the by-polls), but it won't even reach the half mark of 267 if the alliance works, the Congress sources said.

They said the Congress alliance is "almost final" with three other parties – Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati and Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh – that have already come together in Uttar Pradesh since kissing the victory in three by-elections.

Its alliances with Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra is already cemented and the anti-incumbency factor against the state governments in the two states is expected to give them maximum advances.

Sources said not much significance be given to Congress President Rahul Gandhi sending good wishes to his Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on his birthday on July 26 as the two parties are totally different ideologically to think ever of any electoral understanding.

They said the Shiv Sena is already angry with Modi and hence they do not expect it to respond if he requires its support to form the government.

The Congress is confident of ousting the BJP in all three Hindi states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh having the assembly elections towards the year-end and that will help the party in the Lok Sabha elections. These states send 65 members to the Lok Sabha and today 59 of them are from the BJP. The party is in talks with the BSP for alliance in the Assembly elections, but there is still no finality, the sources said.

Though Trinamool Congress chief and Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee met Sonia Gandhi and Rahul as also Ahmed Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad, sources said Rahul may leave it up to the state unit as it is not keen on any understanding with her. The Congress is also in advanced stage of negotiations with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for an alliance in Telangana to take advantage of the anti-incumbency against the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) that has 11 of 17 members in the Lok Sabha.

The Congress is far more inflexible on ideological ground than a few other players like Mamata Banerjee who is quite eager to have some deal with Aam Aadmi Party of Arvind Kejriwal and Sharad Pawar of NCP striking some tacit understanding with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra while continuing alliance with the Congress.

A Congress leader said: "The alliance is possible only with parties which are ideologically aligned. There is no ideological compatibility with Sena." Some so called secular parties too do not fall in the Congress scheme of things. For instance, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi, TDP in Andhra Pradesh and TRS in Telangana even while parties like Trinamool, SP and BSP would like to accommodate them as well.

The Congress is far more inflexible on ideological ground than a few other players like TMC.