2024 polls will be exciting, BJP can face 'tough time': Shashi Tharoor

Predicting that the 2024 general elections will be exciting senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said if the Opposition by and large coalesces around one candidate in every constituency to take on the BJP then the ruling party is going to face a very tough timeIn an interview with PTI Tharoor said it would not be easy for the BJP to replicate the pattern of 2019 when it swept or almost swept multiple statesAsked if the Congress has to be the fulcrum of any Opposition alliance the former Union minister said De facto it Congress is the only party other than the BJP with a national presence and arguably we have a stronger national presence in some parts of India than the BJP has examples being my own state Kerala Tamil NaduThere is no question that the Congress is a party with a national footprint a historic legacy presence pretty much everywhere and therefore inevitably it has to figure in any calculations of an Opposition front or an Opposition government in due course Tharoor saidI think that the main lesson here of course and we have seen from the last two elections which the BJP won with 31 and 37 per cent votes respectively is that the divided Opposition plays into the BJPs hand he saidAlso Read If Musharraf was anathema why did BJP govt sign joint statement with him Shashi Tharoor on tweet backlashStressing on Opposition unity Tharoor said it could be in various forms such as a prepoll alliance or choosing seats wisely so that as far as possible the strongest Opposition candidate gets a clear run against the BJP rival and the final settlement left to after an election resultAll of that is not within the realm of my responsibility but all I can say is that if the Opposition by and large coalesces around one candidate in every constituency I think the BJP is going to face a very tough time in 2024 Tharoor assertedHe argued that there have been very significant material changes in the country since 2019 and cited the example of Bihar where the BJPs former ally JDU has joined hands with the OppositionMuch has changed since the BJP won a record number of seats with its ally in 2019 which is no longer its ally in Bihar Similarly there are other states in which the BJP either had a clean sweep or won all but one seat in the state I dont think that pattern will replicate itself so easily in 2024 Tharoor saidThere is inevitably some antiincumbency in the country and the BJP may well be ruing in 2024 that it succeeded so much in 2019 that there were practically no gains left for it to make in the country he arguedI think it is going to be an exciting election I do not agree with those who have written off the Opposition prospects in 2024 he assertedAsked if the AICC presidential elections and the Bharat Jodo Yatra has revitalized the party and brought it into serious reckoning for 2024 Tharoor said he believes so and recalled that the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi had told him after the AICC presidential polls that she felt that elections had strengthened the partyWe have seen that the public reaction to the Bharat Jodo Yatra especially the culmination in Kashmir was far greater than anybody whether our critics or our admirers had anticipated he saidThe sense is that not only has it completely transformed Rahul Gandhis image thereby the Congress partys it has given a new self belief to the Congress workers and that certainly will contribute in a significant way to revitalizing the party to the challenges that lie ahead Tharoor saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever