Lok Sabha elections: What does the NDA-INDIA contest look like in Phase 1?

Glimpses of the election preparations in Gadchiroli on Thursday.

The 2024 elections are primarily a contest between two alliances. One of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the other the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc in which the Congress is the largest party. However, there is an important difference between the NDA and the INDIA groupings. While the BJP is the dominant party in the NDA bloc and has managed to stitch a seamless alliance with its allies, this is not the case for the opposition. The latter will see many friendly or not-so-friendly contests between parties that are constituents of the bloc. Because nominations for 353 out of the 543 parliamentary constituencies are still not over, a final picture of the cohesion, or lack of it, will only emerge on May 17, which is the last date for filing nominations.

With this caveat in place, what is the break-up of NDA and INDIA partners in the first phase of the elections?

The BJP is fighting 77 out of the 102 PCs going to polls in the first phase. The remaining 25 PCs are being contested by other NDA partners. Among them, the largest is the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) which is contesting 10 PCs in Tamil Nadu, where polling will finish in the first phase. In fact, 15 out of the 25 PCs being contested by non-BJP NDA parties are in Tamil Nadu.

(See Chart 1)

As far as the parties in the INDIA bloc are concerned, they have put up 114 candidates in the 102 PCs which are going to polls in this phase. On a constituency-wise basis, there is more than one INDIA bloc candidate in 12 out of the 102 PCs going to polls in this phase. Which are the parties that have put up candidates against each other among the INDIA bloc constituents? The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is contesting in five PCs (3 in West Bengal and one each in Meghalaya and Assam) against other INDIA bloc constituents. The Congress is contesting three out of these five PCs (one each in West Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya). Left parties – the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB] – are also contesting the West Bengal PC and the Assam PC ,where the TMC and the Congress are in conflict. In addition, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M) and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) are fighting the remaining two PCs in West Bengal which TMC is contesting but the Congress is not. In Assam, Aam Aadmi Party is contesting against the Congress in one PC.

Communist Party of India (CPI) is contesting against Congress on two PCs in Madhya Pradesh and one in Chhattisgarh apart from the conflicts described earlier. The CPI (M) is contesting against the Congress in Andaman and Nicobar. Similarly, both the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party – Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP) are contesting the Lakshadweep PC; and the Congress and the AIFB are both contesting the Nagpur PC in Maharashtra.

(See Chart 2)

The BJP or its allies won six out of the 12 PCs (three in West Bengal, two in Madhya Pradesh, and one in Maharashtra) where INDIA block partners have not been able to put up a joint candidate. This excludes the two PCs in Assam where INDIA Block partners have put up candidates against each other because delimitation of constituencies in the state has made PCs going to poll in 2024 non-comparable with 2019 results. In the remaining four PCs where there is more than one INDIA constituent candidate, the Congress won two PCs (one each in Chhattisgarh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands) and the NCP-SP won one PC in 2019.

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