After V-P poll, Oppn in disarray

After the high drama of cross-voting in the Vice Presidential election on Saturday, the notion of United Opposition seems to be in a disarray. Even the instances of cross-voting during Presidential election went in favour of BJP candidate, making a dent in Opposition's claims of unity.

Moreover, the most distressing fact for the opposition is that Gopalkrishna Gandhi got only 19 votes more than opposition's Presidential nominee Meira Kumar even though 40 more MPs had pledged their support for him.

Even though JD (U) and BJD extended their support to Opposition's candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi, BJP sources claimed that a section of their MPs cast their votes in favour of Naidu. Collectively, nearly two dozen MPs of opposition parties defied their leadership and voted for the NDA's vice-presidential candidate M Venkaiah Naidu, BJP sources added.

Naidu secured 516 votes against the pledged support of around 495, receiving over 68 per cent of valid votes against 32 per cent of what opposition candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who received 244 votes.

Till a few days ago, the BJP's big worry was Bihar where its one-time ally JD (U) was running the government in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress. But in the last couple of weeks, Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) walked out of the 'Grand Alliance' and joined hands with the BJP to form the government in the state. This makes BJP's prospects in the state in 2019 look brighter.

Since 2014, the BJP could manage to make an inroads into the North-Eastern states, and form governments in Assam and Manipur while also forming the government in the Hindi heartland Uttar Pradesh, a state that sends 80 members to Lok Sabha. The BJP had won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh in 2014, with NDA partner Apna Dal also securing two seats.

Thus, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's remarks that no one can challenge Narendra Modi in 2019 make the next Lok Sabha elections a tedious affair, with the BJP consolidating most of the votes.