A 50%-plus vote share for the NDA, gains in the East and the South, holding on to the heartland stronghold, and stitching alliances to leave nothing to chance — this is how the BJP plans to achieve the ambitious target of 400-plus seats fixed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Getting Ajit Pawar on board in Maharashtra, JDS in Karnataka, Nitish Kumar back in the NDA in Bihar and opening talks with Jayant Chaudhary in Uttar Pradesh and Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh — all this is a part of BJP’s strategy to maximise the NDA’s tally and vote share in 2024.
Ajit Pawar got a shot in the arm with the Election Commission allotting him the NCP's clock symbol. Naidu may meet top BJP leaders during his Delhi trip on Wednesday, opening the possibilities of the TDP returning to the NDA fold and giving BJP a foot-hold in Andhra Pradesh where it could win no seat in 2019. Talks are also on with RLD after Amit Shah, in 2022, had offered that Jayant Chaudhary return to the NDA camp. Nitish's return has made NDA's position comfortable on 40 seats of Bihar.
"The INDIA bloc is crumbling in Bihar, UP, West Bengal and Punjab while the BJP, like an election machine, is rekindling earlier alliances and increasing the NDA's footprint…we will seal our alliances before the BJP's national convention on February 17-18," a senior Union Minister told News18 in Parliament on Tuesday.
Another senior BJP leader said the party was confident of performing much better in West Bengal and Odisha, as well as Telangana, than 2019. "We will add seats in the southern states too, where we won only 29 out of 129 seats the last time. BJP will open its account in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu as well as Kerala. NDA will easily cross 50% vote share while the BJP will get close to 45% vote share on its own,” the BJP leader said.
BJP had won 303 seats in 2019, with the NDA winning 351 seats.
Psephologists speak
Speaking to CNN-News18 on Rahul Shivshankar's show 'The Hard Facts', the country's leading psephologists and analysts said it is likely that the BJP and NDA would increase its tally in 2024.
Yashwant Deshmukh of C-Voter said there are four swing states which are potential growth areas for BJP — Karnataka, West Bengal, Bihar and Maharashtra. Deshmukh said the BJP could grow by about 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh since there is no mega alliance like in 2019. Sanjay Kumar, the co-director of Lokniti, CSDS, said there is scope for the BJP to improve its tally in West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana and said PM Modi’s image remains the big factor.
Pradeep Bhandari, founder of 'Jan Ki Baat', said there are 11 states like Uttar Pradesh where the BJP has over 85% probability of improving its vote graph, including winning seats like Rae Bareli. He said an upward trajectory for BJP is also expected in Telangana and Tamil Nadu. Bhandari, hence, said a 400-seat target for NDA was not a fictional one for sure as BJP was getting stronger in its weak areas while Congress was faring the opposite.
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