Form of words:
TeaHis next battle in India is not about the election but the political situation. It will be a contest between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Both want to be a mobilization force against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At this point in time, what is more politically instructive than the 2024 Lok Sabha election, is such a fight before 2024.
The question is not whether Kejriwal and Banerjee can take on Modi. This is how their arsenal is stocked. Instead of the cliché David-versus-Goliath war, imagine if two audacious, over-confident Davids were the first to come face-to-face.
The national scramble for a political alternative to Modi has gained both traction and frustration since 2014, but the race seems to be waning. The 1990s was about the ready-made arithmetic of the post-election Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) front. But arithmetic alone doesn’t work, you need a politician who can rule algorithms in today’s attention economy.
And CM Banerjee and CM Kejriwal know the art of ‘meditation based politics’, just like Modi does. They are aggressive enough to aspire to another state – Punjab and Goa (or Tripura, whichever comes first for the TMC). You see, the rise of Modi has given India’s chief ministers an arc of ambition.
CM to PM
After Deve Gowda, it took nearly two decades for a chief minister to come to Lutyens’ Delhi as prime minister. But 2014 was the first time that a chief minister was full of audacity and win-lose politics. It is only natural that other chief ministers might see this as a template to follow. Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee share the same four qualities that Modi displayed before 2014 – ambition, audacity, quick-witted profits and hustle. Of course, none of this is included in the sum total of the ‘PM chair’. For this you need the support of a broad based party. He doesn’t have either. And Kejriwal is less likely to have the ‘glue factor’ for the opposition alliance than Mamata.
But the major similarities and differences between the two Davids make their self-propelled engines fascinating to watch.
same and different
Both Kejrival And Banerjee Has supported the farmers’ movement in three states, the largest and longest running mass movement against the Modi government. He Has Tried To Be Anti-Modi Without Seeing Him As Anti-Hindu – Mukt From Ayodhya Pilgrimage, Diwali Hindu ritual of worship, Chandipath For temple hopping. Mamata Banerjee is a Left-killer in West Bengal, Kejriwal has stayed faithfully Distant Both are called ‘mini-Modi’ by critics for their style of functioning from the Left politics of Delhi.
But there are many differences.
Kejriwal’s advantage in building a national image is that he is not seen as a box-in regional leader like Mamata or Akhilesh Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray, K Chandrashekhar Rao or MK Stalin. Delhi’s mixed cosmopolitanism prevents Kejriwal’s image from being confined to a particular community. However, Mamata is largely seen as the daughter of the soil, the Bengali-speaking CM. But here is a result. Mamata’s biggest advantage is that at least six states have Bengali speaking areas. If she chooses Lok Sabha seats from most of them, she can flex.
Mamta’s secret weapon is strategist Prashant Kishor and she is already ruling the optics in terms of lack of engineering, claiming hoardings and causing public chatter. Exactly a year ago, most political observers would have noticed Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party because of their participation in the last Goa elections.
Where Mamta’s Muslim politics is on your face, Kejriwal’s more ambivalent,
Kejriwal plays it closer to the BJP on sensitive issues of national security. He supported the removal of Article 370 from Kashmir. Mamta on the other hand Claimed This decision had tarnished India’s name at the world level.
We also need to dissect the procedures followed by two chief ministers to make headlines at the national level – while Mamata Banerjee cuts down on any major move or remarks by Modi, Kejriwal is strategic when it comes to the prime minister. use silence.
However, Kejriwal has one thing which Mamata does not have. He is already the main opposition in the Punjab Assembly, and won an impressive victory in the Surat municipal elections in Gujarat this summer. Her national ambitions are slightly older than Mamata’s.
Read also: BJP vs Opposition is exactly like Coke vs Pepsi. Catch-up Hindutva won’t work
post election scene
Of course, much depends on who captures the bulk of the national imagination and conversation. As Yashwant Deshmukh of C-Voter said recent tv showsAfter Modi and Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the state who gets the highest rating is Kejriwal, not Mamta.
How they create a new image of a national leader now will give us a clue as to how the anti-Modi ecosystem works before 2024. It’s a tough race – as seen in Rahul Gandhi’s failed experiment – even if there are opportunities for leaders. Growth.
The new buzz around Mamata is only because she is still enjoying the radiance of her post-Bengal election victory. Not unlike what Kejriwal enjoyed after the 2015 Delhi victory. Lest we forget that Kejriwal lost Goa and Punjab, even though he was also put at stake in the same way Mamata is today.
But as we learned in American politics, ‘The Audacity of Hope’ is a good start.
Rama Lakshmi is ThePrint’s opinion and features editor. she tweets @RamaNewDelhi, Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Neera Mazumdar)
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