Sanjay K. Jha 
Rahul Gandhi’s repeated assertions that Narendra Modi is not going to be the prime minister for the third term may look like a conscious attempt to challenge the electoral narrative of his invincibility, but the Congress party’s cold calculations also suggest that the BJP will fall short of the majority mark of 272 this time.
Congress strategists believe the BJP is going to lose a substantial number of seats in many states while its gains are expected to be minimal here and there. The Congress leadership is convinced the BJP and its allies will lose heavily in Maharashtra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Haryana, while there could be some losses in Delhi, Gujarat, Himachal, Jharkhand and Assam.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Interestingly, Congress leaders admit the BJP could improve its tally in Telangana by two seats and gain one in Odisha. They are extremely skeptical about the BJP’s claim on Tamil Nadu and Kerala. “We don’t believe the BJP will gain in Bengal. They won 18 seats in 2019 and our feedback is that they could be restricted to 14-15 this time. In Odisha, while they could get one or two seats more than they got in 2019, we hear the bitterness between BJD and BJP workers and leaders has intensified and Naveen Patnaik is keen to show Modi his place this time,” a senior Congress leader tells this writer.
The leader claims that the total gain should be around five or six seats across the country, but the losses are going to be huge, “in the range of 60-70 or more.”
“That’s why Rahul Gandhi and our president Mallikarjun Kharge have been saying Modi will not get majority. In fact, the slide is continuing and the situation could be far worse for the BJP after the completion of the last round of polling,” the senior leader said.
Echoing similar sentiments, another leader said that it was common knowledge that the BJP will lose seats in Bihar, Karnataka and Haryana. “But the real turnaround came as voter sentiment changed dramatically in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The feedback from the ground is that people are fighting the election against the BJP. In Maharashtra, we saw civil society groups, NGOs and students forming groups to create awareness among voters about Modi’s politics and promises. In some areas, it was like an anti-Modi wave,” he said.
Other factors like sympathy for Uddhav Thackeray, bitterness about the anti-Maharashtra stance of two Gujarati leaders – Modi and Amit Shah – and the combined strength of Congress, Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena created difficulties for the BJP, he added. “While even the BJP leaders concede the 48 seats will be divided vertically, some of our local leaders believe the Maha Vikas Aghadi will cross 30. Last time, the NDA had 42 seats. This means a huge loss for the NDA even as the BJP manages to minimise its own losses.”
This leader also said that in Uttar Pradesh, Congress began with modest expectations.
“We hoped to prevent the BJP from achieving its target of 70 out of 80 seats. Mayawati’s reluctance to join INDIA was distressing. But a few things happened all of a sudden. While the issues of prices, unemployment and Agniveer became very big, bearing down on the Ram temple issue. The message about the BJP’s plan to change the Constitution penetrated deep into the Dalit and backward communities. Mayawati’s inaction and the removal of her nephew Akash Anand from the battlefield convinced the Dalit voters that the BSP was not fighting the BJP,” he said.
He added that the party got an unexpected boost with the surge of Dalits and youths in its favour. The Agniveer scheme, and the related anger of Jat and Rajput communities, helped them in Rajasthan also. “We could win anything between six and 10 seats in Rajasthan. That was a windfall. In Uttar Pradesh, the situation has transformed beyond expectation. While some people say we could win 40 seats, a more realistic expectation is 30. Restricting the BJP to 50 is no mean achievement despite the hype around Ram temple,” he added.
Party sources reveal in off-the-record conversations that the Congress expects to win at least 115 seats on its own, creating a base for the opposition alliance reach the 250-mark. Even if that’s possible, they will still have to compete against the BJP to attract additional support from neutral parties and regional forces which are at present aligned with the ruling establishment.
One leader said, “We are not yet seeing a situation where the BJP is knocked out of the frame. They will try their best to form the government if they get around 230 seats. But they may slip further if Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra turns out to be worse than their calculations at this stage. The best proof of the BJP’s decline is manifested in Gujarat where we are expecting at least three seats. We are poised to wrest two more from the BJP in a tough fight. If the BJP can lose five in Gujarat, the slide will be deeper across the country.”
Congress spokespersons have already started describing Modi as “outgoing Prime Minister”. These calculations may be worth less than the Congress hopes they would, because expectations of political parties are based on perceptions, not any scientific measurement. The BJP’s 400-plus projection seems to have already gone awry. Congress leaders and political observers believe the Prime Minister’s language betrays desperation, not confidence. This desperation may well be rooted in the dramatic changes in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh which has emboldened the opposition to dream of derailing the Modi juggernaut.