The past week has arguably been among the most disappointing for the INDIA alliance since it was formed in July 2023. At the time of writing this column, JD(U) President Nitish Kumar, who was a key leader of the INDIA alliance and had worked hard to bring 26 political parties together with the objective of defeating the BJP in the 2024 elections, had just sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar for the ninth time with the support of the BJP after he returned to the NDA following lengthy deliberations over the weekend.
The 72-year-old leader had even earlier hinted that he was not happy with the way things were going in the INDIA bloc. “You all know how I came to this alliance and also how I worked to bring so many parties. But of late, things were not working well. It was not going down well with those in my party as well. Nobody was doing anything… INDIA bloc failed my expectations,” Nitish said on Sunday morning.
“You all know how I came to this alliance and also how I worked to bring so many parties. But of late, things were not working well. It was not going down well with those in my party as well. Nobody was doing anything… INDIA bloc failed my expectations.”
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar
Earlier this week, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee had announced that her party will fight alone in West Bengal and take on the Congress Party as an opponent in the Lok Sabha elections after seat sharing talks between TMC and local Congress leaders did not go well. While Mamata was willing to concede one or two seats, Congress demanded 10 – 12 seats that ended with Mamata deciding to go alone in West Bengal, and rightfully so, as conceding more seats to Congress would only make the alliance more vulnerable considering the diminishing vote bank for Congress in the state.
Similarly, Aam Admi Party has also announced that they would go alone in Punjab and contest against the Congress party in the Lok Sabha polls. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced that the party would fight alone in all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies. However, the party is likely to team with the Congress in Delhi as indicated by Mann.
Unlike Nitish’s JD(U), which is back in the NDA fold, TMC and AAP are fighting the polls alone and could back the INDIA alliance in a post-poll pact if they had sufficient numbers.
Even back home in Tamil Nadu, Congress and the DMK have just begun seat sharing talks. Setting the tone for the talks, DMK Minister Raja Kannappan had slammed the Tamil Nadu Congress for running the party just to get seats from DMK during Lok Sabha elections. “They don’t run the party thinking they should work hard or do good for the people. When elections come closer, they will come. This doesn’t work amongst the people,” he said at an event in Puducherry last week.
“They don’t run the party thinking they should work hard or do good for the people. When elections come closer, they will come. This doesn’t work amongst the people.”
DMK Minister Raja Kannappan
In a way, Raja Kannappan’s comments reflect the reality of the Congress party in TN and elsewhere. If the Congress and the DMK would part ways, TNCC would be lucky to get at least two of the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. DMK sharing more seats with the Congress is only a liability for the former as the Congress does not have a commanding vote share on its own anywhere in TN except perhaps in Kanniyakumari where they will take on the BJP.
The decisions taken by Mamata and the Punjab AAP are also a reflection of the same sentiment where Congress doesn’t have much to offer to the alliance in these states and any tie up with them is only likely to dampen the party workers of the respective ruling parties.
Could all this mean that the challenge posed by the INDIA alliance to stall BJP’s third successive Lok Sabha win has ended?
Well, not yet. if the Congress party could only wake up to the ground situation and make realistic choices, they can still put up a fight.
First, the Congress leadership should realise they have no chance of going alone and defeating the BJP in the coming polls and should do everything in their capacity to retain all alliance partners. And if that means Congress doesn’t get any Lok Sabha tickets in those states where they can’t win on their own, they should let go in the larger interest of defeating the BJP.
And for the Congress party to be able to boldly let the strong regional parties take on the BJP on their own in these states, the INDIA bloc should immediately identify and agree on a Prime Minister candidate.
Besides the PM candidate, the INDIA block should also come up with a Common Minimum Program like the UPA did in 2004 post elections. In this case, the CMP should be decided upon and publicly announced before elections.
Once all regional parties agree to a PM candidate (preferably from Congress as the largest national party in the Coalition) and come up with a minimum programme to work the alliance, fighting the polls should be left to those who can do it best.
Considering the dwindling fortunes of the INDIA bloc over the past few weeks, the Congress and other key members of the INDIA alliance should work over time to spell out in clear terms on what they can offer to the people of this country which the BJP hasn’t. Merely playing the secular card and anti-Hindutva agenda can hardly win any vote in today’s India.
To pose a serious challenge to the Modi’s BJP, the INDIA bloc has to come up with a killer manifesto that they can deliver and to do that, all alliance partners should have sufficient faith in the PM candidate and his or her ability to fulfil the commitments made to the voter.
It’s already late but not too late and just about time Rahul Gandhi and the Congress begin to sprint instead of just walking across the country.