With the Lok Sabha elections a handful of months away, Wednesday is set to be a busy day on the streets and in the back rooms of power in the national Capital.

First, the Karnataka government will hold a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar — expected to continue from 10.30 am to 1 pm — against the Centre’s fiscal policies that it alleges discriminate against the state. Deputy CM D K Shivakumar has said the protest is a “non-partisan struggle for the benefit of Kannadigas and Karnataka” and will see Congress MLAs and MLCs also participate. However, It is not just Karnataka in protest mode. On Thursday, it will be the turn of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala government to hold a sit-in against the Union government at Jantar Mantar.

At a time when the BJP is exuding confidence about the NDA crossing the 400-seat mark in the coming parliamentary elections and the INDIA alliance has yet to wrap up seat-sharing talks — it is also struggling to hold on to its constituents — these protests will be a shot in the arm for the Opposition.

Not surprisingly, the latest pushback against the BJP-led Centre has come from two states from South India that, except for Karnataka, the ruling party has not been able to crack yet. There is also talk emanating from Karnataka about the possibility of a southern alliance being formed so that the southern states can collectively bargain on a stronger footing before the 16th Finance Commission.

Asked about a southern alliance, Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge told Manoj CG ahead of the protest, “Everybody is fighting for it separately, but sooner or later, it will evolve. Telangana is on a par with us because we are the same party (the Congress is also in power in the state). In Tamil Nadu, we are part of the coalition government. In Kerala, even though we are in the Opposition, we support these anti-federalism moves …”

But these two programmes and Kharge’s answer also raise questions about the Opposition’s strategy. Why are Congress-ruled Karnataka and Left-ruled Kerala — both parties are members of the INDIA bloc — holding separate protests when their broad grievances are the same? Was the Trinamool Congress (TMC) invited to the protests given that West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee too recently held a dharna in Kolkata against the Centre for allegedly withholding funds owed to the state? As election strategist-turned-activist Prashant Kishor said at last week’s Express Adda event in New Delhi, for the Opposition it is not simply a matter of parties holding the 62% anti-BJP votes coming together. “You also have to bring synergy among them in terms of narrative, grassroots effort and campaign on the ground,” Kishor said.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Chandrababu Naidu is likely to visit Delhi on Wednesday. The buzz is that the former Andhra Pradesh CM, whose party quit the NDA ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections over the state not being given special category status, may hold talks with the top BJP leadership about returning to the NDA fold and joining hands against the YSRCP in the state.

In context: Speculation about the TDP’s re-entry into the BJP-led alliance first started doing the rounds last June when Naidu held a late-evening meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda. Following its loss in the Karnataka state elections, the BJP was said to have reopened communication channels with JD(S), TDP, and Akali Dal, former allies who had quit the alliance. Of these parties, the JD(S) is now back with the BJP. But, not sure about whether it should alienate Andhra CM Jagan Mohan Reddy whose YSCRP appears to be a stronger electoral force and had maintained cordial relations with it, the BJP in August was reported to be weighing its options.

A couple of months later, when Naidu was in prison after being arrested in a case of alleged scam, senior TDP leader and the former CM’s son Nara Lokesh met Amit Shah in Delhi. At the time too, party insiders said the BJP leadership was holding its cards close to its chest.

The Sharad Pawar camp of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will announce its new name and symbol on Wednesday. This comes a day after the Election Commission (EC) ruled that the Ajit Pawar-led group had the right to call itself the NCP and use the clock symbol.

Sources told Alok Deshpande that Pawar was likely to retain the words words “Nationalist” and “Congress” in his party’s name. The “rising sun”, “wheel”, and “tractor” are among the options for its new symbol. The Pawar group has to claim a new name and “provide three preferences” by Wednesday 4 pm, as per the EC order, since Rajya Sabha elections to six seats from Maharashtra are scheduled for February 27.

But this is just the beginning of the tussle between the two groups and will now end up in the courts. After the order was issued, the state president of Pawar’s NCP faction, Jayant Patil, said, “We will be approaching the Supreme Court against the decision. The order proves that all constitutional organisations have lost their autonomy and the order prima facie is by merely simply putting forward some technical issues. We believe that the Supreme Court will do justice.”