With weeks to go for Lok Sabha polls, what are the key challenges facing the Mahagathbandhan?

The Lok Sabha elections are only a few weeks away and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is making all efforts to retain power for another five years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The top brass of the BJP are massively promoting the programmes launched by its government in public interest during its regime and promising a basket of work to be done in future. This means the party is strongly counting on being re-elected in the upcoming general elections.

Several surveys, conducted in the run-up to the polls, have suggested that popularity of the BJP government and PM Modi among the voters is high in the country.

One of the viable paths to counter Modi’s popularity and remove his party from power is to make a strong alliance of parties in the Opposition.

Talks of a grand alliance or Mahagathbandhan (as termed by the leaders of opposition parties) have been going on since months. However, it still looks a tall order for the parties to bury their differences and come under one umbrella to form a broad anti-Modi coalition.

As the stage is being set for the parliamentary elections, the grand alliance faces some serious challenges. Take a look:

No formal agreement yet

From attending swearing-in ceremonies of Congress leaders in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to supporting Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee in their protests, unity among Opposition leaders was apparent.

However, there is still no formal agreement among the parties, and that could lead to problems. PM Modi, arguably the most popular politician in India right now, could defeat a fractured opposition.

Non-allying Congress

Also, the Congress is yet to announce any major alliances.

On the one hand, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who formed the government after winning 67 out of 70 seats in Delhi assembly polls, said he was “tired of convincing the Congress to form an alliance, but they did not understand”.

On the other hand, Congress was sidelined by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh.

The only alliances that the Grand Old Party have finalised so far are with the Dravida Munetra Kazhagham (DMK) in Tamil Nadu and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra.

No PM face against Narendra Modi

Like 2014, the BJP is contesting the Lok Sabha polls with Narendra Modi in the forefront as the saffron party's PM candidate.

But the anti-BJP front, struggling to form a cohesive alliance, has not yet signalled at even one potential PM candidate.

This is constantly being used by the BJP to criticise the much-talked about potential alliance.

Also read | Amit Shah tears into Opposition, says it lacks leaders and policies

No match to BJP’s campaign funding

Campaigning plays a big role in elections, when parties put forward their vision for the country and make tall promises. However, it requires a huge amount of money.

In this case, no opposition party comes anywhere close to the BJP. According to an ADR report released on January 23, the BJP's income from unknown sources is more than four times the aggregate of income declared by five other national parties. The saffron party alone declared Rs 553.38 crore as income from unknown sources, which is 80 percent of the total income of other parties (Rs 689.44 crore), said the report.

Voter trust

According to a survey conducted by Firstpost and Ipsos released in January, the NDA holds a clear edge over the grand alliance.

The survey reports indicate that more than half of the respondents expressed willingness to vote for the NDA.

A Times Group online poll result released on February 21 also suggested that 83 percent of the over 2 lakh respondents believed in the possibility of a Modi-led NDA government after the general elections.