BJP Can Lose 50 Seats

Shashi Tharoor said: BJP falling below the majority by 2024 is entirely possible. (FILE)

Kozhikode:

Congress senior leader Shashi Tharoor announced on Friday that the BJP will “unlikely” repeat its victory in the 2019 elections in 2024, adding that it is “understandable” that the ruling party has can lose “50 seats” in Lok Sabha.

Congressman Thiruvananthapuram, who is speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival here, said that although he acknowledged the BJP’s dominance, the fact that they have lost many states and their loss of central government is not the cannot.

“If you look at how well they (BJP) did in 2019, they basically had every seat in Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan; or all but one seat in Bihar, MP (Madhya Pradesh), Maharashtra ; and 18 seats in Bengal .

“Now, all those outcomes are unrepeatable and the BJP falling below the majority by 2024 is entirely possible,” argued Mr Tharoor during the session titled ‘India @ 75: Walking Through Democratic Institutions’.

Named for the Pulwama attacks and the Balakot attack, which he said led to a “huge wave” at the last minute – a “strangeness” that won’t happen again in 2024 – the 66-year-old It said a reduction of 50 seats for the BJP and won for opposition parties is completely “conceivable”.

However, on the key question of whether the opposition parties, which Tharoor predicts will overtake the BJP from the majority position, will stay together is something he said is “unanswerable”.

“If the BJP is at 250 and the others are at 290… would those 290 agree or the BJP could pick 20 here and 10 there from the parties that want support from the central government for the day? and then form a government. We don’t know,” he declared.

BJP won 303 seats out of 543 seats in Lok Sabha election 2019 while the National Assembly won only 52 seats.

Speaking about the challenges India faces after 75 years of Independence, Tharoor, who though admits that dynastic rule in a democracy is a “challenge”, said those who pointed to his party should also look across the country.

He argues that with the sole exception of “Communist Party and BJP”, ironically at the extreme end of the political spectrum, it seems that every party has dynastic politics.

“When we pointed and said ‘Congress Dynasty’… you look across the country and what you see Mulayam Singh (Yadav) was succeeded by his son, Lalu Prasad Yadav was succeeded by his son. his son Karunanidhi was succeeded by his son his son Bal Thackeray was succeeded by his son, Sharad Pawar… he was there a lot but the heir was clearly a daughter and his grandson,” he added.

Billed as one of Asia’s largest literary get-togethers, the Kerala Literary Festival hosts a diverse mix of literary and cultural icons, from Nobel laureates, award-winning writers Booker, high-ranking politician to historian, film personality, diplomat and artist.

The speaker list includes 2022 Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka, Nobel Prize winners Ada Yonath and Abhijit Banerjee, American Indianologist Wendy Doniger, actor Kamal Haasan, children’s author Sudha Murty and veteran singer Usha Uthup.

(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)