"2024 Polls Will Be Exciting, BJP Can Face 'Tough Time' If...": Shashi Tharoor
NDTV
In an interview with PTI, Mr Tharoor said it would not be easy for the BJP to replicate the pattern of 2019 when it swept or almost swept multiple states.
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 time".
In an interview with PTI, Mr Tharoor said it would not be easy for the BJP to replicate the pattern of 2019 when it swept or almost swept multiple states.
Asked 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 Nadu." There 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, Mr Tharoor said.
"I 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 BJP's hand," he said.
