A day after naming their coalition “INDIA,” India’s opposition political parties have decided on “Jeetega Bharat” as their alliance’s slogan, striking a nationalistic note to compete with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s NDA alliance, whose political campaigns and speeches have largely centered on invoking patriotism.
Recently, both the NDA alliance and the opposition convened gatherings to show off their size and set the tone for their campaigns for the 2024 Lok Sabha.
According to sources who spoke to PTI, the Hindi tagline, Jeetega Bharat, which means “India will win,” is likely to be translated into a number of regional tongues. They claim that during the meeting on Tuesday in Bengaluru, a number of leaders thought that the word “Bharat” needed to appear in the alliance’s name.
Many leaders emphasized that the tagline’s creation was the result of a team effort by many leaders.
In a meeting on Tuesday, the leaders of India’s 26 political opposition groups decided to call their coalition INDIA (India National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), setting the groundwork for a fight against the incumbent BJP to achieve a majority in the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for the following year.
By announcing that the year 2024 will see a confrontation between India and Modi—an INDIA Vs NDA contest—they disclosed what might be their campaign ringtone.
After deliberating over a dozen alternative names, Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool offered and won the vote for INDIA. In her remarks following the announcement of the partnership by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, she asked the NDA and BJP, “Can you challenge INDIA? If you think you can, try and catch us”.
Both coalitions were outspoken about their membership and unabashedly proclaimed themselves to be the best contenders for the position of leader of the largest democracy in the world for the ensuing five years.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked the Congress party and other opposition political parties, stating that they put their families before the country, the Congress party responded strategically by declaring that they had no problem offering the job of prime minister to other parties in their alliance.
That would represent a big shift because the UPA alliance and Congress typically appointed one of their party members as prime minister during their prior terms as the leading party. The BJP and its coalition have consistently attacked Congress with harsh accusations of dynasty politics.
Meanwhile, the NDA coalition, according to Modi, stands for “new India,” “development,” and “aspiration.”
How is BJP looking towards the Grand Opposition Alliance?
Later on Tuesday, in a speech, Modi asserted that political coalitions “built on negativity” were doomed to failure and cited the accomplishments of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which the BJP had founded in 1998.
To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the BJP organized an NDA meeting in the capital on Tuesday. 38 parties attended, many of them minor organizations with narrow regional spheres of influence.
Since Modi took office in 2014 and was re-elected in 2019, the NDA has lost influence as an alliance as a result of his leadership of the BJP to decisive victory that weakened the influence of alliance partners.
However, political observers in the local media claim that BJP is recreating the NDA now because it does not want to leave anything to chance in order to win a third term.
Modi addressed the NDA conference and said of opposition parties, “We unite the people of India, they divide the people of India, they underestimate the ordinary people of India.”
People are curious as to why they are uniting and what is the common thread, according to Modi. The decision has been reached to grant the NDA the mandate a third time.
