Shashi Tharoor's Lok Sabha polls prediction: ‘BJP to emerge as…'

New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has predicted the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will emerge as the single-largest party in the upcoming 2024 general elections. However, he said, the BJP can be stopped from forming a government at the Centre by significantly bringing down its seats tally and forcing its allies to lose confidence in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

The BJP-led NDA won 303 seats in the 2019 general elections. The alliance is aiming for the magical 400-mark in the 2024 general elections. The Congress and 27 other opposition parties have formed an alliance to challenge the BJP juggernaut.

Speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival, Tharoor said the BJP's "numbers can be brought down" to stop it from forming a government.

"I still expect that the BJP will emerge as the single-largest party. But I do believe their numbers can be brought down to a level where their potential allies required to form a government may no longer be willing to ally with them and may be willing to ally with us. So we have to give it a try," the former Union minister said in a session, 'India: The Future is Now', PTI reported.

Tharoor said preventable defeats can be avoided if INDIA bloc secures seats-sharing agreements in sufficient states.

"That's the best thing they can do, and if it so happens, and there is enough divergence of views, maybe the BJP candidate will win. But that's democracy in our first-past-the-post system," he added.

Tharoor said in Kerala it was impossible for the CPI(M) and the Congress to agree to a seat-sharing agreement.

"In Kerala, it is almost impossible to imagine the two major opponents here of the INDIA alliance, namely the CPI(M) and the Congress, ever agreeing on seat-sharing, but right next door in Tamil Nadu, the CPI, CPI(M), Congress and DMK are all allied together and there is no debate, no dispute. They already fought the last election together. They are likely to fight this one too," he said, per PTI.

The INDIA bloc has been having seat-sharing talks in several states. However, in many statesstriking agreements between the alliance partners is tough as the constituents had been political rivals.

. In Bengal, Mamata Banerjee had said her TMC could only defeat the BJP, hinting she is averse to sharing seats in the state. Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury later claimed her party had only offered two seats.

In Punjab and Delhi, the Congress and the AAP are bitter rivals. After verbal duels hinting the two parties don't want to share seats, the two sides have made some progress with AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal meeting Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge was on Saturday selected as the chairperson of the alliance after Nitish Kumar refused to become the convenor.