IT goes without saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would take every possible countermeasure against an invigorated opposition alliance, which believes the 2024 battle against his two-term, right-wing rule, though uphill, was nevertheless eminently winnable. But could Modi’s pre-emptive actions include something so dire as to polarise Hindu voters by allowing a terror attack on the Ram temple being built in Ayodhya?

The temple under construction at the site of the destroyed Babri Masjid is being readied for likely inauguration before general elections in May. The frightful assertion about a possible attack has come from at least two prominent political activists. They are senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan and Modi’s former governor to Jammu and Kashmir, Satyapal Malik. Both have publicly warned of the possibility of an attack being allowed to happen in Ayodhya to enable a win for Modi in the general elections.

There are two assumptions behind the claim. One, that Modi fears a possible defeat against the newly minted group called INDIA, or the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance. The other assumption is that the alliance is solid despite its members being bitter state-level rivals.

A new element in the opposition’s calculations is that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who was disqualified from Lok Sabha following his conviction in a defamation case, has been sent back to parliament following a supreme court injunction against his conviction by a lower court in Gujarat. Had the conviction not been stayed, Gandhi would remain disqualified from contesting elections for eight years. Now that he can again fight for a seat in the Lok Sabha, speculation is rife chiefly among the Congress cronies that he is the alliance’s prime ministerial candidate.

Everyone’s sights are thus firmly on a united campaign to defeat Modi.

This is a canard, says a spokesman for the INDIA group. Rahul Gandhi’s return to parliament strengthens the opposition, not weakens it with personal ambition. He is not in the fray for the top job, no one is. “It isn’t the priority,” insists Derek O’Brien, West Bengal MP from Mamata Banerjee’s ruling Trinamool Congress. The alliance was focused on saving the country’s secular and federal structure and protecting its minorities from a majoritarian assault, he says.

Speaking for the INDIA group, O’Brien admitted there could be niggling problems ahead in forging a truly invincible opposition, but added that leaders of its 25 main opposition parties were sanguine it was manageable. In an interview with The Wire’s Karan Thapar, O’Brien described the defence of the constitution as the overarching issue for the opposition. The alliance would work also to dismantle the system of crony capitalism, a reference to a select group of Gujarati businessmen that have openly supported Modi and are said to have benefited from his generosity in return. One such is Gautam Adani, a multibillionaire tycoon whose private plane Modi had arrived in in Delhi to take the oath of office in 2014.

Modi’s asset could be the opposition’s Achilles heel. Or so it was feared when senior opposition leader from Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar, praised Adani in a TV interview on a channel owned by Adani. Pawar caused a flutter later by greeting Modi at a public event in Pune. Despite these episodes, recent accounts by journalists who visited the state say that the opposition would wrest a majority of Maharashtra’s 48 Lok Sabha seats, among the largest cluster after Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 MPs to the 543-strong Lower House.

The Aam Aadmi Party’s rivalry with the Congress in Punjab and Delhi is being reined in. The two are canvassing joint support against a bill that would dilute the executive powers of the Delhi government headed by AAP. Similarly, old rivalries between the communist-led left parties and the Congress, and Mamata Banerjee’s government, are being addressed, says O’Brien.

The evolving principle readily embraced is that the main party in any state would take the lead to accommodate the smaller contending groups. Everyone’s sights are thus firmly on a united campaign to defeat Modi, of which the alliance, says O’Brien, is confident. That the BJP felt the need to summon its invisible NDA alliance partners recently is being seen as a sign that Modi alone may not be good enough this time. What about his tactics that have mostly outfoxed the opposition?

The genesis of this fear lies in Modi’s ascent to power. His major victory as chief minister of Gujarat and his stunning wins in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019 could not be possible without polarising events that gave him a handle to manipulate public opinion, a craft at which he excels. Modi’s victory as chief minister was spurred by the Godhra train inferno he blamed on Muslims. His critics have accused him of using the death of 50-plus Hindus in the fire to promptly blame Pakistan before letting the mobs loose on Muslims.

A new twist to the story of the Godhra train coach fire was given by former BJP chief minister of Gujarat Shankar Singh Vaghela. In an unusual interview to Atul Chourasia of News laundry, a resoundingly bold online channel, Vaghela asserted that the fire had all the makings of a false flag attack that was staged to win the election the BJP would otherwise lose. Rape, arson, loot and mass murder created the atmosphere of unparalleled communal polarisation in independent India.

The 2014 Muzaffarnagar communal violence was similarly spurred by false rumours that pitted local Hindus against Muslims in Uttar Pradesh. Likewise, the 2019 campaign caught the opposition unprepared for the nationalist sentiment Modi extracted from sending air force planes on a cross-border raid “with the help of cloud cover” he believed would dodge the enemy radar.

The opposition knows that Modi keeps a cache of handy tricks, including desperate ones, to constantly refurbish his sagging image as the great leader that India never had. The opposition mustn’t allow themselves to be the stags yet again, pulverised by the headlights of Modi’s riotous cavalcade.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

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Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2023