How to beat the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019 in five simple steps? Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien says he has a formula for what the opposition parties need to do in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in order to defeat the ruling party.
'The BJP is beatable in 2019' is the title of one amongst 46 essays in O'Brien's new book Inside Parliament – Views From the Front Row, which was released in New Delhi on Thursday.
Speaking about the book at its launch, the Rajya Sabha MP said that he has written about how the BJP can be defeated in 2019. “I do believe this is possible if four to five steps are taken,” he said.
The quiz master-turned-politician believes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party can be defeated if they are pushed into fighting 29 different elections in 29 different states. “They have to be fought in the idiom and language of each state. Each party in the opposition has a role to play in this,” O'Brien said.
The opposition has to play to its strengths, he said. “In West Bengal, the obvious strength is the Trinamool Congress. So the BJP will have to encounter the Trinamool there. In Tamil Nadu, it will be the DMK. There will be a sweep for the Trinamool and the DMK. Wherever the state parties are strong, they have to play to their strengths,” he said.
As for the Congress, he said the party's strong chief ministers have a role to play in this scheme. “In Punjab, Capt Amarinder Singh will take on Modi. In Karnataka, the anti-BJP campaign will be driven by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah,” said O'Brien.
He said that the next important thing that the opposition needs to do is to counter the narrative of corruption peddled by the BJP government. “The BJP is trying so desperately to propagate the narrative of corruption—that they are not corrupt and everybody else is corrupt,” he said, adding that the focus has to be turned to what work the Modi government has done.
The opposition, he said, also needs to avoid the 'fake narrative' of polarisation and communal issues. The real narrative is in 'JUDGE' – which stands for jobs, unemployment, demonetisation, GST and economy. “Whenever the BJP tries to distract from this narrative, we have to bring the focus back to this narrative,” he said.
The opposition also needs to raise forcefully the issues of farmers. “The Uttar Pradesg government set aside Rs 36,000 crore for farm loan waiver. But farmers got cheques of Re 1, Rs 5 or Rs 10. Where is rest of the money?,” O'Brien asked.
