FOCUS - January 2024
Election 2023-2024 I.N.D.I Alliance In Disarray!
Bharatiya Rashtriya Vikasatmak Samaveshi Ghatbandhan (BRVSG) or Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance or I.N.D.I Alliance is a formation of an association of some 27 political parties from Kanya Kumari in the South to Jammu & Kashmir in the North, to jointly fight the general election due in May 2024. It was formed around mid-2023 with the sole objective of ousting the ruling NDA government at the center, but more particularly to dethrone the current Prime Minister for 2 terms, Narendra Modi.
We all understand that UNITED WE STAND, DEVIDED WE FALL. When we all have the same objective, it is amazing how easy it is to overcome obstacles to reach our goal! However there is an intrinsic catch. All components of the united group should have the larger picture of good of all, which may not be always the case.
This BRVSG or I.N.D.I Alliance is a desperate association of disparate parties without any ideological affinity or even similarity. The idea of association everywhere is to promote a common objective. In this case, it is to get political power and for bigger and more resourceful parties to throw crumbs to smaller outfits, by taking the role of patron. In this I.N.D.I Alliance case, it’s the INC or the Indian National Congress which wants to usurp the role of patron. It is true that all want to be a giver and not a receiver. But the fact of life is, it’s never fair, more so in politics and in equitable sharing of political cake.
India, that is Bharat, has a history of 76 years as a politically independent nation, having been surrendered by the colonialists of yesteryears, the British. They left us in 1947 August. Since then, we have been managing our socio-political and economic life. We all know, it’s the politics which controls a nation’s socio-economic life.
Although elected government was established only in 1952, after the first general election, the preceding five years too had a government. The central government between 1947 and 1952, the 5 year period, was that of Congress Party, or the Indian National Congress (INC). INC was the only dominant political party with all-India presence. It ruled the country without any interruption upto 1977. Thus for 30 years Indian National Congress party ruled the country without any visible opposition. From 1977 to 1980 Janata Party ruled the corridors of power in New Delhi. Again from 1980 to 1989, 10 years were ruled by INC. 1989 to 1991, Janata Dal ruled the roost. INC came back in 1991 to 1996, with P.V.
Narasimha Rao as the Prime Minister, with Congress led coalition.
The above details, clearly shows that, for close to 55 years of free India the nation was ruled by the Indian National Congress, of which 40 years were ruled by INC only as a single ruling party with the remaining 15 years Congress being the dominant party in a coalition arrangement. Of the remaining 20 plus years, 16 years BJP ruled, with its government being the incumbent at present. The balance of about 5 years were ruled by
Janata Party and its off-shoots like Janata Dal, Samajavadi Janata Party and Janata Party Secular etc.
All students of Indian politics should note one very important fact, that in 1982, after the departure of Jana Sangh from the Janata Party combination and the formation of Bharatiya Janata Party or the BJP, it had only 2 seats. There was total disillusionment with Janata experiment with personal ambition of its leaders taking precedence over the party interest or national interest. Morarji Desai was there for little over 2 years as the first Prime Minister of Janata party government, followed by Chandrashekar for little over 7 months and Charan Singh for less than 6 months. Thus there was little scope for anyone from Jana Sangh, which was the only cadre based party in the Janata combination. If they had to grow they had to, perforce, leave the Janata combination, and it was a very wise decision to have its own identity as Bharatiya Janata Party, to keep the word Janata while adding Bharatiya to it.
Congress was slowly losing its grip on the national psyche. Janata got splintered into many outfits to remain within the confines of a region, like Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar, Samajawad Party in UP, Janata Dal United in Bihar, Lok Dal in Haryana. All of them enjoyed some power in some pockets. Thus, it is clear that Janata experiment failed only due to the ambition for personal aggrandizement of its leaders. All of them were so much unlike Jayaprakash Narayan, who inspired the sampoorna kranthi, which brought about Janata Party.
As compared to all of them, BJP remained in the fringes of national politics to slowly grow on its own strength. Slowly but surely the party grew steadily from the 2 seat in the Loksabha in 1982 to 303 in 2019. It’s a saga of dedication and hard work. Electorates have trusted them that they will work for the nation more than for themselves.
Of course, the emergence of Narendra Modi as a leader by his own strength of personality has immensely added to the phenomenal growth of BJP in recent times. It is this growth, the I.N.D.I. Alliance wants to stop.
In the lexicon of achievers the word impossible is not there. Therefore to stop the growth of any political opposition or to even reverse its growth, is an eminently do-able task if a committed road map is drawn. History is generally full of ‘Ifs and Buts’, why civilizations have failed due to the short term self-centered objectives of the society in general and warring groups in particular. Pre Independence period of India presents a vivid example of such a scenario.
Similar situation is prevailing even at present among sections of our socio-political groups. Lot of us are more concerned about ourselves, our families, friends and cronies. In other words we are generally more selfish or self centred.
If you extend this analogy further, picture of I.N.D.I Alliance becomes more clear. Of the 27 political parties, there are 11 parties with no representation in the parliament and 5 parties with 1 MP each. So, more than 50% of the political parties in the alliance are either not represented or very thinly or poorly represented. One party with 2 MPs. There are 4 parties with 3 MPs each. One party with 4 MPs, One party with 6 MPs. Thus there are 23 parties with 27 MPs. Remaining 4 parties are with MPs in 2 digits, JD(U) has 16 MPs, TMC has 23 MPs, DMK has 24 MPs. Highest of 47 MPs are from INC (Congress). So basically, it’s these 4 parties who represent 110 MPs which is more than 75% of seats with remaining 23 parties: representing remaining less that 25% at 29 seats. So, the entire I.N.D.I Alliance has a total tally of 139 seats in a house of 543 seats, representing ½ of what is needed to form the government. Thus prima facie for I.N.D.I. Alliance it’s a long shot.
As we already know the INC or the Congress was the ruling party for over 55 years. It certainly wants to get back to ruling the country, since it’s been calling the shots for more than 2/3rd period since independence.
But there is a problem of dynastic dimension of the party. Party is ruled by the Gandhi family rightly or wrongly, although for record a Dailt, Mallikarjun Kharge, is the party president. He is appropriately educated, a lawyer by qualification. Used his position to amass huge personal assets.
Under the circumstances, it’s very unlikely that INC will accept the role of a junior partner in the ‘Ghatbandhan’ or the Alliance to play the second fiddle besides the party also has 47 seats in parliament, which is over 1/3 of the total seats in the I.N.D.I. Alliance in the present Lok Sabha.
Thus, whether anybody likes it or not Congress is not likely to give up its Mai Baap hegemonistic role for lesser mortals. This fact has to be accepted as a reality. But, as we are witnessing it, that is not likely to happen.
The last assembly elections to five states have established to a fair degree where the wind is blowing. Of the five states 3 have gone with overwhelming majority to the ND Alliance where BJP is the dominant party. I.N.D.I. Alliance did not fight these elections as a group. Thus Congress lost both in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, to BJP group, where Congress had its own government.
NDA won the elections to these two states convincingly. Congress was also very hopeful of winning the Madhya Pradesh election due to the close to 2 decades incumbent factor against the outgoing government of Shivraj Singh Chauhan of BJP. In the event, however, Congress lost the election to Bhopal rather badly with BJP romping home with over 2/3rd majority. Congress had the consolation of winning the Telangana assembly. But there too BJP improved its tally from 1 seat in the outgoing assembly to 8 in the new assembly with some 16% vote share. This a very positive development for BJP for coming years.
Going back to the last 5 states elections, which was touted as semi-final for the 2024 general election, the results have been mostly unexpected. A Mumbai based paper had it as head line “Hindi Heart land’s MANN KI BAAT”, describing the 3 major states going to BJP convincingly. “Heartland gives BJP 2024 Head Start” was the headline in TIMES OF INDIA. “BJP sweeps Hindi belt” was the headline in THE HINDU. Clearly as these media members see, there is no stopping of BJP led by Modi in 2024. A paper remarked “The voter in the Hindi heartland has spoken loud and clear, reflecting Rahul Gandhi’s childish fulminations against the Prime Minister.”
Has the Congress overstepped its mandate coming from the I.N.D.I Alliance! While the agreement was that all future management of pole, distribution of seats, should be alliance centric, depending upon the strength of each party in different region. But the over confident Congress with victory in Karnataka didn’t bother to take allies along or accommodate them in seat adjustments.
So confident was the Congress that it just didn’t bother to discuss the demands of Akhilesh Yadav’s demand for a couple of seats in Madhya Pradesh. A report in the Times Of India headlined, “SP (Samajawad Party of Akhilesh Yadav) blames Kamal Nath’s ‘Akhilesh-Vakilesh’ comment for Congress rout in M.P”. “Assembly poll results: TMC blames Congress” was another headliner. There have been media reports on the future of I.N.D.I bloc. “Bargain gets harder for battered Congress, boon for I.N.D.I. Alliance bloc to meet”. “Shock for Congress as I.N.D.I Alliance take it to task for ignoring them”. “Election results show that Congress is unable to win on its own. It is very necessary for everyone to strengthen the I.N.D.I Alliance bloc”. However, Supriya Sule, daughter of NCPs Sharad Pawar has over-read that the election results will have no impact on Lok Sabha election. Either she was referring to her fears of possible BJP success in the 2024 poll or she truly believed that opposition leaders in the dotted coalition would sink their differences and suppress their egos to ensure a one-to-one contest against BJP.
Post results to these five state assemblies has truly and comprehensively thrown this rag-tag I.N.D.I Alliance of 27 parties from all over India, into a veritable disarray.
Rogers Thesaurus, among many meanings has also referred to DISARRAY, as dishelved, scattered, confused, shambled etc. While it is true that the I.N.D.I. Alliance is in a kind of confused state, what really went wrong with Congress! Asim Ali, writes in THE HINDU “Both Baghel (Chattisgarh CM) and Gehlot (Rajasthan CM), not only sidelined strong party leaders like T.S. Singh Deo and Sachin Pilot, but also marginalized the state Congress organization preparing to operate through bureaucrats and chosen ministerial aides”.
In Madhya Pradesh old guards like Kamal Nath, who is decades past his expiry date in leadership, has prevented real progressive agenda by not developing state level leadership that can embody progressive ideas. His remark “Kamlesh-Vamlesh” has only distanced partners in I.N.D.I Alliance bloc. His overconfidence was such that he reportedly remarked “This time, BJP will not have a chance to topple the government by purchasing out MLAs. He was speaking to his party workers before the counting began on 3rd December. In the event his party and the lading light on I.N.D.I.A bloc got less than 1/3rd of the total seats let alone getting anywhere closer to the half-way mark.
Anyway damage was done but there is future gaping at opposition political parties. So repair and get going. In a smart move both TMC Supremo Mamata Banerji and AAP Supremo Arvind Kejriwal have endorsed the candidature of Mallikarjun Kharge as the I.N.D.I. Alliance nominee for Prime Ministership. Before the proposed meet of alliance partners. But reportedly both Nitish Kumar of JD(U) and Lalu Prasad Yadav of RJD have red flagged the proposal. After the last meet, 3 months ago, this was expected to be a kind of game changer. In the meet Congress stated that “Seat sharing among I.N.D.I Alliance bloc will be done without any hurdle. There will be a joint opposition candidate against the BJP led NDA”. But what really brought TMC back to I.N.D.I.A fold was the support from Congress on the ‘Mahua Moitra expelled as MP’ issue to retrospect the issue of Motra being expelled from the parliament, could as well be a self-goal by the government, which really became a rallying point for the opposition. The latest meet among the members of I.N.D.I Alliance has provided another opportunity to redraw the road map ahead of May 2024 Lok Sabha election. However, as Azim Ali writes in TOI it’s only, “Many faces, but no big idea”. He says “The team is badly trailing, which appears to be more fatigued, ambling around without either a coherent plan or a clear leadership apparatus to execute it. Even with a late closing of ranks at the end, the opposition might require some divine intervention to make a contest out of it”. One paper even remarked “Whatever the noise, the dotted I.N.D.I.A bloc has proved to be a non-starter”. Thus the leadership of I.N.D.I. Alliance has its job cut out. They have to tighten the belt and get cracking to make a match out of 2024 general elections. Hope they do.
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