Union home minister Amit Shah is strangely following in the footsteps of the controversial Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in the cause of uniting the opposition.The home minister’s prediction that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance’s will win the 2029 Lok Sabha elections could backfire, uniting the opposition parties for a decisive electoral battle.Shah, man Friday of the prime minister, has been keeping a low profile these days. He has largely stayed away from the two houses of parliament during the monsoon session after becoming the opposition’s main target for using pellet guns against agitating students and predicting the BJP’s victory. It is bound to raise the hackles of an agitated opposition, which has already put the Narendra Modi dispensation in the dock over issues like the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), vote chori, and paper leaks. This has decisively cast a shadow over the Modi government’s governance. The government’s defence of Kumar, at a time when his decisions are being seen as benefitting the BJP in elections, is counterproductive.While the prime minister is tight-lipped on this issue so far, Shah too has not yet come forward despite the fact that Kumar was their own. The charge that the opposition is benefiting the ‘infiltrators’ is only being bought by the faithful. Politically, it has revived opposition parties and enthused the younger generation, Gen Z, which is coming out of the mindset of Mandal-Kamandal, which influenced Indian politics for over three decades. Notwithstanding differences, egos and personality clashes, opposition parties are coming together to oust the BJP.Shah’s statement would certainly ensure opposition parties get their act together and project a united front. The home minister’s claims must have been realised by the opposition by now that divided they will fall. In fact, the process has already begun with the top leadership of the Trinamool Congress and the Left, who have started talking about sharing platforms as an anti-BJP front.Shah, who is known as a mastermind behind splits and defections in the anti-BJP parties before and after elections in the Trinamool Congress, the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and other parties, is obviously a key figure. On the other hand, his growing ambition to be the successor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also creating many rivals within his own BJP.Shah made the statement while ridiculing the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and Congress, while predicting their defeat in the next general election. But in reality, this would help the opposition parties, who can utilise every opportunity to discredit the Modi regime.Nowadays, the problem for the BJP and especially the prime minister is that the strategies evolved by the home minister are proving to be counterproductive for the party and the ruling dispensation. Whether it’s Jantar Mantar or Jantar Mantar 2.0, Shah’s strategy to suppress it totally, wholly, and completely through police high-handedness has, in fact, made people lose fear of the rulers. It is not good for any dictatorial regime.The deceleration in Shah’s stature started from the days when there was talk in political circles that he would be made the deputy prime minister; what has been de facto is bound to become de jure, it was said.But months have passed and nothing of that sort occurred. While the prime minister was the deciding authority, the home minister was his executor.The crisis for the prime minister is also one for the home minister, as he is bungling his strategy one after another. And still, for Modi, there is no one like Shah on whom he can rely. It also shows Shah’s impact on governance at a time when it is seen that the PMO has become the most powerful under Modi. The weeklong detention of Cockroach Janta Party leaders Saurav Das and Abhijeet Ranka for entering Jantar Mantar, defying the order of its denotification as a site for public protests, signals the home minister’s strategy of using such tactics to intimidate critics of the regime.However, it is turning admirers into critics, as even Annamalai, once a loyalist of Modi-Shah, has now hit out at them for such tactics. He has also blamed the prime minister for seeking new enemies even after being in power for 12 long years. India is also being attacked globally for the way it is not tolerating dissent while proclaiming that it is the world’s biggest democracy. Worse, there is also a feeling globally that the BJP is neither acting fairly nor properly in the electoral arena, much to the discomfiture of the opposition. Talk in political circles is that the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, due early next year, are expected to bring about major changes. Whatever might be the outcome of the battle in Lucknow, it could lead to the start of one-upmanship between Shah and Yogi Adityanath for the No 1 slot in Delhi at a time when the prime minister is increasingly turning off colour and is bereft of fresh ideas.While Yogi is the poster boy of hardline Hindutva, Shah is the No 2 in the government, known as the nut and bolt man. But he too has his limitations. One is his inability to attract the younger generation; the second is that his relations with regional parties inside and outside the NDA are hardly cordial. Thirdly, he is seen as the protector of defectors and splitters in rival parties.Depending upon the emerging situation, Shah’s biggest asset as well as his liability is his closeness to the prime minister.Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari are New Delhi-based journalists.