En route to 370 seats, BJP looks for co-travellers

It is tying up with regional parties - big and small - to reach the target the PM has set for the 2024 polls. RADHIKA RAMASESHAN explains

- RADHIKA RAMASESHAN

In his pursuit of an unprecedented victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set an ambitious target: 370 seats for the party and 400 for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). This goal, announced in his final speech to the 17th Lok Sabha on February 8, has led the BJP to focus determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.

The past week rang up the curtain on the microstrategies the BJP has deployed to reach that figure if realised, will come close to the 404 seats (with a later addition of 10) won by the Congress in 1984-85. In Tripura, where it is the ruling party for a second term, the BJP brought on board a regional player, the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance or Tipra Motha, led by Pradyot Debbarma, a former Congressman. The Tipra Motha has 13 legislators in the 60-member Tripura Assembly, and promptly, Animesh Debbarma, the former Opposition leader, and another MLA, Brishaketu Debbarama, were inducted into the state Cabinet. The Tipra Motha represents the rights and interests of indigenous tribes.

To strengthen its grip on the East, the BJP is trying to bring Odisha's ruling party, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), back into the NDA. In Odisha, the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls will be held concurrently. Reports from Bhubaneswar suggest the prospective BJP-BJD arrangement would involve the BJP contesting most of the parliamentary seats, while leaving a majority of the Assembly seats to the BJD.