THIS OPPOSITION IS ALREADY DEAD, IT JUST DOESN'T KNOW IT YET.

 The results of the just concluded Bihar elections establish that if we have an unscrupulous ruling party at the center, we have an  incompetent, lazy and self serving Opposition in Delhi and the states. For both of them the country is just a notional concept, a legal fiction, a medium to exercise power, make money and live the VIP life- the damage to it's citizenry, institutions, environment and dreams of those who fought for its independence are mere collateral damage in the noble pursuit of power. Election after election, this is being proved time and again by both sides.

The writing has been on the wall in letters big enough for even a Class I student from Bihar to read- viz. that the BJP will never allow any other party to win any election of any consequence. But the Opposition either cannot read or has developed selective amnesia, especially the Congress : it remembers a Karnataka and a Himachal but forgets the  81 of the last 93 elections it has lost since 2014, according to one researcher. Those who can read, like Nitish Kumar, Mayawati, Shinde, Ajit Pawar and Paneer Selvam in Tamil Nadu have sensibly decided to join the school bully. The others, it appears to me, are playing a double game- otherwise why do they keep repeating their mistakes election after election and further legitimising the BJP's hijacking of democracy? They bring to mind Einstein's dire warning: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

As Yogendra Yadav has pointed out, the BJP contests elections at two levels- the legitimate and the illegitimate. In the first, its ruthless efficiency, planning, tactical moves and indefatigable persistence cannot but be admired by any objective observer: it knows when to bend and when to push, when to cajole and when to coerce, when to assert and when to compromise; it starts preparing years in advance, it works according to a master blueprint, and it selects the people to execute it with a ruthlessness that spares no one and rewards merit alone. Everything is planned for, it leaves nothing to chance. This has made it perhaps the most formidable election machine in the world.

The major Opposition parties and their leaders, by contrast, are either vacationing abroad, doing padyatras which peter out like a stream in a desert, or prove that they are still alive by the occasional tweet on X, Facebook or Instagram. They have no sense of urgency, they wake up only before an election, sycophancy is preferred to merit, the same old jaded playbook is dusted off each time, they spend more time fighting each other than fighting the BJP, instead of standing up for true secularism they espouse a hypocritical and incomprehensible soft Hindutva, their focus is on wearing the crown rather than on winning the throne. Their egos are far bigger than their capabilities and they have much to learn from the BJP about alliance making. For example, what was the logic (other than hypocrisy and ego) in spurning Owaisi when he offered to join the Maha Gathbandan if he was given six seats? He is a force in Seemanchal and had won six seats there in 2025. He was imperiously rejected and went on to win 5 seats and dent the MGB's chances in another 7-8 seats. Compare this with the BJP which is happy to ally with even a party which can deliver one seat!

Consider now the second level at which the BJP operates- the illegitimate. It would probably win even without this overkill, but as I said earlier, it leaves nothing to chance. In the last ten years it has subjugated and captured every lever of power and source of funding. It is also a master at conducting political inquests: the disappointing results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections made it realise that it was not enough to manipulate the voter, what was imperative was a way to manipulate the vote instead. And so, after successful trials in Haryana, Delhi and Maharashtra, it rolled out the brahmashastra- the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) in Bihar. It has worked, and so it has now been launched in 12 other states, even as the Supreme Court keeps waffling over the challenge to its constitutionality. I have no doubt at all that the novel legal principle of "fait accompli" will ensure its eventual roll-out throughout this broken country.                                            Our higher judiciary, of course, is missing in action when it matters most, whether it be keeping scholars in jail for years without trial or conviction, letting the criminal retain the proceeds of crime as in the Electoral Bonds case, watching mutely as its own orders are violated with impunity as in the demolitions of houses of "suspects" and minorities. The Election Commission has become the BJP's facilitator and go-to agency for winning elections, and it even draws red lines which the courts are advised not to cross! Not content with simply manipulating the polling process through EVMs, it has now delivered the ultimate insurance policy for the BJP- the SIR  which will curate the nation's voter lists to suit its mentor for all times. 

In such an eco-system the Bihar result was, as Anant Teltumbde writes in a piece in THE Wire, eminently predictable, though the cockiness of the BJP in awarding itself a 90% strike rate caught even sceptics like me by surprise; such rates are usually seen in countries like Ghana and Rwanda, not in mature democracies. This shows not only the party's thoroughness in micro-planning, its manipulative skills but also its "I don't give a damn what you think" attitude. The result was inevitable also because the BJP has changed the nature and architecture of politics, while the Congress and its "allies" are still stuck in a time warp. The structure of politics has been corporatised by the BJP- the finances, the HR policies, the ideating, the delegation of tasks, the PR, the emphasis on market share and I.T- while the Opposition still functions like the traditional Mom-and-Pop store, like a family business, and is doomed to be wiped out.

The Opposition should have known how the result in Bihar would pan out, and probably did, which is why Rahul Gandhi was on vacation instead of fighting in the trenches and why no significant "leader" of the INDIA alliance campaigned in Bihar: the power point presentations, the various "bombs", the press conferences, the sporadic tweets were all window dressing. Like a mouse transfixed by the hypnotic glare of a snake, it couldn't move even as it was devoured whole. 

The triad of Modi-Shah-Gyanesh Kumar (who is now being defended by a "labharti" coterie of retired judges, defense officers and bureaucrats) delivered the coup-de-grace to the Opposition with the implementation of SIR. This was the real nuclear bomb, which leaves no survivors. And this was the moment, following the revelations of the electoral homicide in Bihar, Delhi and Maharashtra, when the Opposition should have said "Enough is enough" and called for a total boycott of all elections (including Bihar). Not just a boycott by the opposition parties but by the citizens, the voters, the civil society of the nation. It could have taken a leaf out of Jaiprakash Narayan's book of Total Revolution. But this required too much hard work, moving out of their comfort zone of govt. allotted bungalows, risking their sources of funding and hefty allowances. Instead it chose to opt for more power point presentations, tweets and petitions in the Supreme Court whose constitutional commitment is becoming harder to discern with each judgment. As expected, the MGB then had its nose rubbed in the soil of Bihar, by now thoroughly sprinkled with bribes, fake and deleted voters and a compromised govt. machinery. It got what it richly deserved, but the real victim is the idea of democracy and fair elections.

The Congress is perhaps contemplating a boycott now, and planning to hold a massive "Vote Chori" rally in Delhi's Ram Leela grounds in December. It should have done this mass mobilisation two months ago, when SIR was announced. Their belated attempts  will fail, for the moment has passed- a tide, as Shakespeare said, has to be taken at the flood and not when at the ebb. A boycott has to come from a position of strength, both physical and moral, and not from a position of weakness. The Congress and the opposition are now on weak ground, having been destroyed in Bihar, their Supreme Court petitions headed nowhere, every party plowing its own opportunistic furrow. They have lost credibility with the masses who no longer believe that these so-called leaders can bring about any change. They have let the nation down, for the Age of Modi has just begun. The sun will not set on the BJP empire for many more years.