By Sushil Kutty
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to defeat the BJP has run into choppy seas, losing its cohesive hold and threatening to return to the previously splintered status of the Opposition. Cracks have developed and the INDIA bloc cannot agree on seat-sharing formulas. Common enemy BJP is gung ho watching INDIA look set to implode. Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar, Bhagwant Man, there are plenty of opposition leaders ploughing the ground under the INDIA bloc’s feet.
Somebody pointed out the “absence of structural cohesion”, which is a pretty good description. Now, TMC head Mamata Banerjee says the TMC will fight it alone and does not need the alliance with the overbearing Congress. Mamata is satisfied with the regional parties ganging up against the Congress. Then, there is the AAP following suit, driving its quota of nails in the INDI-Alliance coffin.
Thereafter, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar, for the exact same reason. The INDIA trouble has spread to West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab and Kerala. Seat-sharing is the main bugbear. The main parties of the alliance are always at odds with each other. Each party wants the lion’s share or more than their allotted shares of seats. Does the warring INDI-Alliance constituents even realize the enormity of what they are upto? General elections come only once in five years, it’s the equivalent of “you live only once.”
Mamata’s story is simple and straightforward. Like the others, Mamata is also looking to be in position for India’s top post. The same like Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal. Also Rahul Gandhi. The Congress believes it is better placed in 2024 than in 2019. The Congress is pining to crown a Gandhi prime minister and maybe a quarter of India also want a Gandhi at the helm.
Mamata Banerjee, however, doesn’t seem to want the alliance with the Congress going forward. Efforts are on to compel her to reconsider. But Mamata Banerjee’s main grouse is with the Congress. The day after Rahul Gandhi says “talks are on for seat-sharing” in West Bengal, Mamata refutes the claim. “Let the Congress fight 300 seats on its own,” sarcasm dripped. “We will not tolerate any interference.”
Mamata is also mad at the Congress for not sounding her out and failing to keep her in the loop on Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’, which will be passing through West Bengal, too. The question is, does Mamata speak for the regional parties? Mamata says further decisions will be taken only after a meeting of regional parties, after the Lok Sabha elections.
On seat-sharing with the Congress, Mamata is willing to spare only “two seats”, the same two which the Congress already holds — Malda Dakshin and Berhampore. Appears like the TMC is serious about going solo in the general elections. What happens to the INDIA bloc? “The Congress has nothing to lose in West Bengal,” says Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and the CPI(M) does not want anything to do with the TMC.
So, Mamata Banerjee pulls the plug on both and there is also the Congress-AAP “split” in Punjab. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann says AAP will win all 13 of Punjab’s Lok Sabha seats, sidelining the Congress without even a sideways glance. That said, what’sgonna happen to the seat-sharing talks between AAP and Congress? The Congress and the AAP generally operate in Punjab and Delhi, with Goa and Gujarat increasingly looking like serious battlegrounds.
In 2019, the Congress won 8 parliamentary seats in Punjab. The AAP got one. The 2022 assembly elections, however, established AAP with 92 out of the 117 seats. The Congress got 18 seats. And the BJP was nowhere in the picture. An AAP-Congress alliance is ruled out though. The AAP, like the TMC, is going solo. The Congress, too. That said, Congress and AAP have chalked out a seat-sharing agreement for Delhi. And might for Haryana.
The INDIA bloc’s also straining at the bits in Bihar. The Congress has only one Bihar Lok Sabha seat. But it has a strong ally in Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal even if Nitish Kumar’s JD-U is on a slippery slope. In fact, the Bihar Chief Minister is difficult to pin down to any particular position. What Nitish Kumar wants is Nitish’s guess. But with Mamata Banerjee on the prowl, Nitish Kumar may not have his own game. The travails of the INDI-Alliance have very less time to unravel. Another two months and it will all be too late. INDIA leaders must convene an emergency meeting to sort out all differences amongst the partners on seat sharing the success of which is crucial for taking on resurgent BJP. (IPA Service)
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