Shashi Tharoor
'BJP will lose 50 seats in 2024 Lok Sabha elections': Congress leader Shashi Tharoor
Kozhikode (Kerala): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor Saturday said that the BJP wouldn’t be able to replicate its 2019 performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and it is ‘conceivable’ that the ruling party would lose at least 50 seats, media reported.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP was speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode.
While he accepted that the BJP is the dominant political party in the country, Tharoor pointed out that it also lost many states and it isn’t impossible that it might lose power at the Centre.
"If you look at how well they (the BJP) did in 2019, they have essentially had every seat in Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan; or all but one seat in Bihar, MP (Madhya Pradesh), Maharashtra; and 18 seats in Bengal,” Tharoor was quoted as saying by NDTV.
"Now, all of those results are impossible to replicate and the BJP dropping below the majority in 2024 is entirely possible," Tharoor argued.
He made the remarks during a session titled 'India@75: A walk through the Democratic Institutions'.
Tharoor attributed Pulwama attacks and the Balakot strike to the "tremendous wave" at the last minute that gave BJP the massive victory in the 2019 elections.
He called it a "freak" that won't be repeated in 2024.
He maintained that a drop of 50 seats for the BJP and gain for the opposition parties is entirely "conceivable".
Asked if the opposition parties, which he claims would trump the BJP from its majority position, will stay together, the 66-year-old leader said it is something impossible to answer.
"If the BJP is at 250 and the others are at 290... will those 290 agree or would the BJP be able to pick 20 here and 10 there from parties that want favours from the central government of the day and then form the government. We don't know," he stated.
On allegations that Congress is a party led by one family-the Gandhis, Tharoor said it is the same with all the parties in India with the sole exception of the "Communists and the BJP".
"When we point the finger and say the 'Congress dynasty'... you look around the country and what you see Mulayam Singh (Yadav) is succeeded by his son, Lalu Prasad Yadav is succeeded by his son, Karunanidhi is succeeded by his son, Bal Thackeray is succeeded by his son, Sharad Pawar... he is very much there but his heir apparent is his daughter and his nephew," he added.
He agreed that dynasticism in a democracy is a "challenge", but added that those pointing fingers at his party should also look around the country.
The BJP won 303 seats out of 543 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while the Congress only managed 52.
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