Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said it will be “impossible” for the BJP to recreate its 2019 landslide victory in 2024 adding it is “conceivable” that the ruling party can lose “50 seats” in the Lok Sabha elections due next year.
The senior Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram was speaking at a Kerala Literature Festival. He said while he acknowledges BJP’s majority, it’s also a bare fact that they have lost elections in many States and the chances of losing in the 2024 polls are not impossible.
“Now, all of those results are impossible to replicate and the BJP dropping below the majority in 2024 is entirely possible,” Tharoor argued during a session titled ‘India@75: A walk through the Democratic Institutions.
“If you look at how well they (the BJP) did in 2019, they have essentially had every seat in Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan; or all but one seat in Bihar, MP (Madhya Pradesh), Maharashtra; and 18 seats in Bengal.
He termed the Pulwama Attack and the Balakot Air Strike just before the 2019 Elections, led to a “tremendous wave” at the last minute — a “freak” that won’t be repeated in 2024 — the 66-year-old said a loss of 50 seats for the BJP and gain for the opposition parties is entirely “conceivable”.
“Impossible to answer,” said Tharoor on the question of whether opposition parties will be able to triumph over the BJP and its allies.
“If the BJP is at 250 and the others are at 290… will those 290 agree or would the BJP be able to pick 20 here and 10 there from parties that want favors from the central government of the day and then form the government. We don’t know,” he stated.
The BJP had won record 303 seats out of 543 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while the Congress barely managed 52.
On challenges India faces after 75 years of Independence, he admitted “dynasticism” is a challenge to the most democratic country in the world.
