Can a Congress-led mahagathban-dhan (grand alliance) challenge the Narendra Modi juggernaut in 2019? Will the index of opposition unity being forged across the country displayed in Karnataka, where Sonia Gandhi ensured the Congress took the backseat to seal a post-poll pact with the Janata Dal (Secular) to turn the tables on the BJP-led NDA, and in Uttar Pradesh, where the opposition stunned the BJP in three bellwether bypolls checkmate the NDA in the Lok Sabha polls?

The two questions are related yet distinct. The first question pitches the 2019 general elections as purely a Modi versus Rest contest; the second sees it as the clash of two grand coalitions UPA+ versus NDA+. While an answer to the first would hinge on the personality of the prime minister defining the contours of the battle, the second would directly depend upon the arithmetic of alliances. While the first scenario mirrors the Modi versus Rahul contest of 2014, the second parallels two key battles of the past between big coalitions: 1999, when the A.B. Vajpayee-led NDA won, and in 2004, when the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA emerged victorious.

Sensing Modi would stand much taller than Rahul or any other UPA leader if 2019 were to end up as a personality-led, presidential-style election, like in 2014, the UPA+ alliance has deliberately changed the narrative of the debate, stating upfront that its prime ministerial candidate will be finalised only after the Lok Sabha polls are over. Fighting the battle without declaring the general also helps prevent a clash of egos between at least half a dozen leaders, such as Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati, Chandrababu Naidu, Sharad Pawar and Akhilesh Yadavall prime ministerial aspirants.

Even as the UPA was busy stitching together a rag tag coalition with all and sundry parties and trying to shift the battle beyond personalities to an arithmetic of coalitions, the NDA has found new allies in the statesfrom the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) to K. Chandrashekar Raos Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), YSR Congress of Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and the AIADMK. Moreover, the BJP has mended fences with disgruntled allies, such as the Janata Dal (United), as last weeks election for the Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson reveals (the JD-Us Harivansh Narayan Singh was elected to the post). The four new allies extended support to Singh in the Rajya Sabha elections. While the NDA enjoys the Modi advantage, it has also begun coalition-building with anti-UPA smaller regional parties.

Which of the two grand coalitions, then, has greater firepower to launch a blitzkrieg in the battle of 2019? Not so long ago, a credible challenge from the UPA to the NDA seemed like a mirage in the desert. But post-Karnataka, a grand UPA+ coalition has assumed a formidable shape and could seriously challenge the NDA. The NDA, though, has been working to broadbase its own alliance to partially offset the anti-incumbency it faces after four years of rule. Which way will the wind blow?

Consider the recent claims by the leaders of the two coalitions. Prime Minister Modi recently ripped apart the idea of an anti-BJP mahagathbandhan. A non-ideological alliance of desperate and disparate groups is not a mahagathbandhan but political adventurism, he said in an interview. In June, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who hopes to become the magnet for an UPA-led grand alliance, evocatively said in Mumbai: It is the sentiment of the people, and not just political parties that are opposed to the BJP, to have a mahagathbandhan that can take on the prime minister, the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi gave Rahul a powerful retort, describing the anti-BJP alliance as Band, Baaja, Baraat without a groom. The barb was aimed directly at Rahul, who is often dismissed as unsuitable for the role of the groom, a pappu in the BJPs words.

The scenarios

The india today-Karvy Insights Mood of the Nation (MOTN) survey, done about seven months ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, considers three possible scenarios. All three are hypothetical, of course, since both alliances have changed over the past four years. Moreover, the scenarios are arithmetical probabilities based on potential pre-poll alliances in the battleground states.

Scenario 1 the arrangement of allies on the UPA and NDA sides is comparable to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In an apple-to-apple comparison, it provides the benchmark to compare the two rivals who are continuously evolving as the 2019 polls approach. The trend is also in continuity with previous MOTN polls.

The UPA without the top three allies, namely the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC)is predicted to get 122 seats (20 more than the January 2018 MOTN) compared to the NDAs 281 and 140 with Others. The difference in vote share between the two rival alliances is about 5 percentage points NDA at 36 per cent and the UPA at 31; Others gets 33 per cent. While the Congress is likely to bag 83 seats by itself, the BJP is expected to get 245 seats and Others 215.

Scenario 2 UPA+, which includes the SP, BSP and TMC in a pre-poll pact, is likely to do really well, getting 224 seats, just four less than the NDA; Others get 91 seats. In terms of percentage of votes, UPA+ (41 per cent) does better than the NDA (36 per cent), while Others are expected to end up with 23 per cent votes.

Why does UPA+, with more votes, gets fewer seats than NDA+? The reason is that the BJP has a much higher strike rate than the Congress. The Congresss vote is spread thinly across the country while that of the BJP is concentrated in regions, such as the north, west and northeast. As a result, despite a neck-and-neck race between UPA+ and NDA+, the Congress is likely to get only 96 seats as against the BJPs 194.

The UPA gains hugely from the support of three key allies in two battleground states UP (80 Lok Sabha seats) and West Bengal (42 seats). After snatching bypoll victories in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana in the first half of the year, the BSP and SP have entered into a series of negotiations for a pre-Lok Sabha poll alliance, with the Congress in tow as a junior player.

Scenario 3 NDA+ finds new partners in the south: AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu Desam Party and Peoples Democratic Party, which quit the NDA, have been added to the UPA fold. With additional partners in the south, NDA+ is likely to get 255 seats in contrast to 242 seats for UPA+. In terms of popular votes, UPA+ (43 per cent) is still ahead of NDA+ by 2 percentage points; Others are merely 16 per cent. If the two new allies the BJD and TRS end up in a pre-poll alliance with the NDA, the seat tally is likely to go up to 282 seats for NDA+ and slide to 242 for UPA+. The post-poll scenario may get complicated if the CPI and CPI(M), who are in the Others category, join UPA+. But on the whole, in all the scenarios, NDA+ remains ahead of UPA+ in terms of seats.

Moreover, the BJP remains not only the largest political party with the widest array of organisations, including the various outfits of the Sangh Parivar, and a proven electoral and booth management strategy crafted by party president Amit Shah, but more importantly the party has an overarching ideology of neo-nationalism and Hindutva that binds millions of its cadre. As a dominant party, the BJP might need fewer allies compared to a desperate Congress, yet sensing anti-incumbency, caused by reasons such as lack of jobs and inflation, the BJP leadership has shown the ability to build fresh alliances even as it lost some old friends.

What are the UPA's chances of victory in 2019? The UPA trails the NDA in each scenario though it is fairly close in scenario 2. Prime Minister Modi, despite being in power for over four years, is still the most popular prime ministerial candidate (49 per cent as opposed to 27 for Rahul). But post-Karnataka, the UPA's fortunes have improved 49 per cent of respondents said yes and only 20 per cent said no when asked whether they believed that opposition unity was being built as a mahagathbandhan against the BJP-led NDA.

The weakness of the mahagathbandhan is at the core; the Congress, which as the numbers suggest, might have grown somewhat but not enough. In each of the key states, it is heavily reliant on regional allies. In a direct combat between the Congress and the BJP, the Congress is at a clear disadvantage. The Congress must confront what looks like a punishing campaign map in the winter of 2018 in the three BJP-ruled states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. To win the heats before the finals, the Congress must emerge victorious in at least two out of the three states. A key question is if the UPA+ grand alliance can hold together the coalition of extremes the diverse Muslim, Dalit and OBC voters while making inroads into the mainstream Hindu vote, whom a janeyudhari-tilakdhari Rahul is attempting to attract with his temple tours. It depends on how much the grand alliance is able to oppose the NDA's Hindutva agenda without a backlash from conservative Hindu voters.

UPA+ also needs an overarching ideology, beyond being simply anti-Modi. It must communicate a compelling and cohesive message to the electorate about what it stands for. Secularism versus communalism is an outdated formula that only polarises the majority voters in favour of the BJP. UPA+ must declare an alternative economic vision of growth and development beyond farmers woes and women's empowerment and craft an effective electoral and booth management strategy. Rather than the opportunistic game of maximising votes and seats, the UPA grand alliance needs to sell a dream to the electorate of a better tomorrow.