Sashi Tharoor predicts BJP will emerge as single-largest party

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday predicted that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) will emerge as the single-largest party in the upcoming Lok Sabha 2024 elections. He, however, said the BJP can be stopped from achieving the feat by significantly bringing down its seat tally and forcing its allies to lose confidence in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

According to a PTI report, speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival in a session, ‘India: The Future is Now’, Tharoor said the BJP’s “numbers can be brought down” to stop it from forming a government.

“I still expect that the BJP will emerge as the single-largest party. But I do believe their numbers can be brought down to a level where their potential allies required to form a government may no longer be willing to ally with them and may be willing to ally with us. So we have to give it a try,” the former Union minister said.

Tharoor further said defeats in certain seats can be avoided if the INDI bloc reaches a seat-sharing agreement with its allies in sufficient states.

“That’s the best thing they can do, and if it so happens, and there is enough divergence of views, maybe the BJP candidate will win. But that’s democracy in our first-past-the-post system,” he added.

The Congress leader further stated that in Kerala, it was not possible for the CPI(M) and the Congress to agree to a seat-sharing agreement.

“In Kerala, it is almost impossible to imagine the two major opponents here of the INDIA alliance, namely the CPI(M) and the Congress, ever agreeing on seat-sharing, but right next door in Tamil Nadu, the CPI, CPI(M), Congress and DMK are all allied together and there is no debate, no dispute. They already fought the last election together. They are likely to fight this one too,” he said.

The INDIA alliance has had seat-sharing talks in several states recently. On Saturday, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge was selected as the chairperson of the alliance after Nitish Kumar refused to become the convenor.

As many as 28 opposition parties have come together under the banner of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to take on the BJP and defeat it in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.