 "From Donald Trump to Chandrababu Naidu, biggest political comebacks of 2024")
The year 2024 witnessed some extraordinary political comebacks.
In the US, Donald Trump achieved the truly incredible feat of becoming the second person in history to win non-consecutive terms as US president.
Closer to home, Chandrababu Naidu returned as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh for the fourth time, and Ajit Pawar inflicted the heaviest defeat his uncle Sharad Pawar had seen in his political career during the Maharashtra polls.
Let’s take a closer look at the big comebacks made this year
Donald Trump: From political pariah to president
There was no bigger comeback than Trump in 2024.
After all, his political obituary had practically been written.
Trump had lost the 2020 election term to US President Joe Biden – the man he’d mercilessly mocked as ‘Sleepy Joe.’
Then, after his supporters had stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump was a political pariah.
He had left Washington in disgrace to take up residence in his club in Mar-a-Lago Florida.
He was also impeached for the second time – though yet again acquitted by the Senate. Trump also faced what seemed like a never-ending avalanche of legal cases.
What seemed to be the nadir for him came in May 2024 when he became the first former US president to be convicted of a felony.
He sat in a courthouse stone faced as the verdict was read as people outside the courthouse cheered.
“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” an angry Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here.”
Trump had also been found civilly liable in the rape case of writer E Jean Carroll.
Then came arguably the most important inflection point of the election – Trump in July survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
The incident resulted in a flood of sympathy for Trump and caused billionaires like Elon Musk to throw their money and muscle behind him.
Trump then accepted the Republican party nomination for president.
Days later, Trump and his campaign received a setback when President Joe Biden dropped out of his re-election campaign following a disastrous debate.
Trump and his campaign were thrown for a loop.
Their entire plan had been to run against ‘Sleepy Joe.’ They thought they had it in the bag.
Now, they faced a new contender – Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Trump seemingly struggled to get a handle on how to hit Harris. He seemed angry and upset that Biden had dropped out – thus denying him his favoured opposition in the upcoming election.
Trump also had what people viewed as a disastrous debate against Harris.
His claims that he won the debate and that there was thus no need for a follow up bout only resonated with the most hardcore of believers.
Going into election day, most polls and pundits had it dead even between Harris and Trump.
However, the momentum on the ground seemed to be with Harris. Her rallies were filled with excitement, enthusiasm and celebrities, while Trump struggled to draw crowds.
This despite Trump surviving a second assassination attempt at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Worse, Trumps’ rallies would often be a witness to a steady stream of people hitting the exits. He also continued to rail about how the election was ‘rigged’ – thus setting the groundwork to challenge a possible defeat.
Trump at his final event seemed utterly deflated. He spoke about how things were coming to an end and that said he would not run again in 2028.
Then Election Day came. And it wasn’t even close.
Though most people had thought the final result would take days, Trump never abandoned the early lead over Harris.
Indeed he utterly dominated Harris – particularly in the all-important swing states.
Trump racked up 332 Electoral Votes compared to just 226 for Harris.
More impressively, Trump defeated Harris in the popular vote, which no Republican had done in decades.
George HW Bush was the last Republican to prevail in the popular vote – way back in 1988.
Trump, at age 78, also became the oldest person ever to be elected president.
But perhaps Trump’s most impressive achievement is to join Grover Cleveland as just the second person to win non-consecutive terms as US president.
Little wonder that many have hailed Trump’s 2024 win as one of the most impressive feats in modern political history.
Indefatigable When Trump takes power in January, he would have sealed his comeback to the highest office in the land in grand style.
Perhaps it is only fitting that Trump has been named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2024.
Chandrababu Naidu: The indefatigable politico from Andhra
Like Trump, Naidu, 74, too sealed an incredible comeback this year.
Naidu, like Trump, had been handily defeated – if not disgraced – in the previous election.
Five years ago, May 2019, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy snatched power from Naidu’s hands in Andhra Pradesh.
This after the YSR Congress registered a historic victory during the 2019 general election winning 151 seats in the 175-member state Assembly.
But that wasn’t all. The YSR Congress also won 22 of 25 Lok Sabha seats.
Meanwhile, Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party was left in the dust – winning just 23 seats in the Assembly and three in the Lok Sabha.
The Telugu Desam that ruled the truncated state since it came into being in June 2014 after creation of Telangana, had to be content with a mere 23 seats in the assembly and just three in Lok Sabha.
Even Naidu’s son and heir Lokesh came a cropper.
Reddy was sworn in as chief minister on May 30, 2019.
As Reddy rose, Naidu fell – and fell hard.
After all, this was the man who had decades of political experience, had served three terms as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, gained acclaim as the ‘CEO’ of the state and won a slew of awards.
Naidu in 2021 left the Assembly after derogatory comments were purportedly made against his family by YSRCP MLAs in front of then chief minister Reddy.
Naidu swore to return only as chief minister.
But the worst was yet to come.
Naidu in 2023 was arrested in the Skill Development Corporation Scam case by the YSRCP government.
Fortunately for Naidu, he was granted bail in October.
He then joined the NDA alliance – a reversal from 2019 after Naidu left the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah combine seething.
Naidu then sought to capitalise on the wave of sympathy of the wave of sympathy engendered by his arrest.
His daughter Nara Bhuvaneswari, the child of TDP founder NT Rama Rao, then went on the Nijam Gelavali (Truth Should Triumph) yatra.
Naidu himself went on the Praja Galam (People’s Voice) yatra in March to mobilise public anger against the YSR Congress and Reddy.
When the polls came, Naidu now gave Reddy the same treatment he’d received in 2019.
The TDP won an even more impressive 163 of the 175 Assembly constituencies and 21 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats.
And Naidu was back in the saddle for the fourth time as chief minister.
The grand old man of Andhra politics was back where he belonged.
This time, when Naidu took the oath of office, it was Reddy who was absent in the House.
Ajit Pawar: The comeback king of Maharashtra
The King is dead. All hail the King.
These words could well have been spoken after the recent polls in Maharashtra after Ajit Pawar handily defeated his uncle Sharad in a prestige battle.
In 2023, Ajit split from his uncle to form a breakaway faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Ajit had rebelled before of course.
In 2019, after a split between the BJP and Shiv Sena, Ajit joined the government as deputy chief minister alongside Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
But the government didn’t last. Neither did Ajit’s defiance. The prodigal nephew returned to the NCP.
But things were different in 2022. This time, the breach was permanent.
Ironically, it was history repeating itself – this time as tragedy for Sharad who broke himself away from the Congress in 1978 to form the NCP and led to the fall of the Vasantdada Patil government in Maharashtra.
Like Sharad had taken senior Congress leaders Govindrao Adik and Sushilkumar Shinde with him, so did Ajit walk out the door – with party stalwarts such as Dilip Walse Patil, and Chhagan Bhujbal.
The events also mirrored what occurred in 2022 when Eknath Shinde broke apart the Shiv Sena and led to the fall of the then Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
Shinde, with the help of BJP, became chief minister of Maharashtra.
Ajit, on the other hand, joined the Maharashtra government as deputy chief minister.
This time too, both factions of the party lay claim to be the real thing.
The Election Commission ruled in favour of the Ajit faction and allotted it the party’s famous ‘clock’ symbol – a decision which Sharad challenged in the Supreme Court.
This after Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar in February determined that the faction led by Ajit was the real NCP.
However, the apex court did rule that the Sharad faction could use “Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar" as its name along with the symbol of a man blowing “turha.”
But the consensus remained that the true winner could only emerge at the ballot box.
Among the many mouth-watering battles in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, perhaps none was an enticing as Ajit vs Sharad in Maharashtra – nephew taking on uncle.
But the first contest wasn’t one – not really.
This is because the two parties were directly facing each other in just two seats.
Sharad’s NCP-SP easily outperformed against Ajit’s NCP, winning eight seats in Maharashtra compared to a paltry one seat for Ajit.
Ajit’s wife Sunetra even lost to Sharad’s daughter Supriya Sule in the Baramati Lok Sabha seat – which Ajit said he later regretted.
This, as the Indi alliance made massive gains in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh and the NDA lost ground.
But the real battle was yet to come.
That would be the Maharashtra Assembly polls in November when the Mahyuti of the BJP, Shiv Sena and the NCP (Ajit Pawar) took on the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (Sharad Pawar).
This time, the Pawar family pulled out all the stops against Ajit including Pawar himself, his wife Pratibha and Supriya Sule’s daughter Revati campaigning for Sharad’s grandnewphew Yugendra.
The result was an absolutely bloodbath for Pawar – arguably the worst defeat of his political career including defeats in some of his most prestigious constituencies including the family stronghold of Baramati.
The NCP (SP) won just 10 seats, while Ajit’s NCP took home 41 seats in the kitty.
To make things even sweeter for Ajit, the NCP chief handily defeated his nephew Yugendra by 1.16 lakh votes.
Now, Sharad’s political obituary is being written with the man himself dropping hints about retiring.
Ajit, meanwhile, has returned as Maharashtra Deputy chief minister – and has likely set his eyes on a far higher prize.
With inputs from agencies
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