Alliance of convenience on the verge of collapse

The INDI Alliance, which was formed before the Lok Sabha elections and had claimed to provide an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party, is showing signs of shattering into pieces. There is nothing unexpected, shocking in this.

Disputes have begun in INDI alliance among AAP and Congress, Trinamool and Congress. In Maharashtra, UBT also has started preparing to contest the upcoming municipal corporation elections independently by indicating to keep a distance from the Congress. Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken has created a sensation by directly labeling the Aam Aadmi Party, an important part of the INDI Alliance, as anti-national. Whereas Trinamool Congress has targeted the Congress leadership on the issue of EVMs.

Trinamool Congress has taunted Congress by saying that Congress leadership i.e. Rahul, Priyanka, Sonia Gandhi should stop holding EVMs responsible for the election failure. After the defeat in Haryana and Maharashtra, the Congress leadership has once again started crying about EVMs.

Especially after the shock of disastrous defeat in Maharashtra, the stunned Congress leadership is creating an awful fuss about EVMs. Along with the Trinamool Congress, National Conference leader and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has also publicly reprimanded the Congress by saying that the Congress should not blame the EVMs.

The limitations of the Congress leadership trio i.e. Rahul-Priyanka and Sonia Gandhi have been revealed once again by these developments.

After winning 99 seats in the Lok Sabha elections many intellectuals and journalists were showing over the top enthusiasm while praising Rahul Gandhi.

In Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections, voters burst this bubble of Rahul baba’s leadership. Now the partners in INDI Alliance have started doing the public post mortem of the remaining limitations of the leadership of the Gandhi family.

With Delhi assembly elections around the corner, political happenings in the national capital are on peak. Arvind Kejriwal and his colleagues have vowed to retain Delhi. In the backdrop of the much talked about liquor scam in Delhi and the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia etc, the Delhi Assembly election this time will be very interesting.

In the Lok Sabha elections a compromise was reached between AAP and Congress over seat allocation in Delhi. Anyways, the settlement was of no use as the Bharatiya Janata Party won all the Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. Leaders like Ajay Maken, Sandeep Dikshit and others in Delhi are insisting that the Congress should contest this assembly election independently.

Ajay Maken, while explaining this, made a statement that the Congress should not support the anti-national party like AAP. Maken’s opposition to the AAP leadership is not new. Maken had exposed Kejriwal with evidence in the liquor scam also. Many leaders have been constantly insisting that Congress should fight independently to maintain its existence in Delhi. The insistence of Congress to separate from AAP has further increased after the Lok Sabha results.

Basically, earlier as well there was no ideological consensus between the Congress and most of the anti-BJP parties in the INDI Alliance. The INDI Alliance was born only on the basis of a negative mentality of opposing the BJP. There was no guarantee of how long this baby will hold on as there was a lack of emotional quotient while nurturing this baby.

History tells us that whenever Congress joined hands with regional parties to oppose the Bharatiya Janata Party, it threatened to end its existence. In the 1990s, Congress made pacts, formed alliances with the parties of Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav on the sole basis of opposition to the BJP in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Today, Congress has a nominal existence in both these states. A similar situation has arisen in Delhi. Since 2013 Aam Aadmi Party started attracting Congress’ voters towards itself. In the 2013 assembly elections, the Congress had 24.7 percent votes. In 2015, vote share of the Congress came down to 9.7 percent. In 2020, this percentage dropped to 4.3 percent.

A lot of water has flown under the bridge in the last 5 years. Arvind Kejriwal’s image as a clean, honest politician has been shattered. It is clear from the court hearings so far that it is impossible for Kejriwal to get away with the liquor scam. Congress took an aggressive stand on the issue of industrialist Adani at the beginning of the winter session of the Parliament this year.

The Trinamool Congress and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party opposed the Congress’ stand of not allowing the Parliament to function on this issue.

It is necessary to discuss the issues of the country, the problems of the common man in the Parliament. Congress’ stand of not allowing Parliament to function on the issue of a businessman was absolutely wrong. But Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, who play tactics on the basis of negative politics only, could not show such maturity. This has resulted in the gradual isolation of the Congress leadership in national politics.

 

(Article Pre-Published in Times of India Online – 30 December, 2024) 

Keshav Upadhye, Chief Spokesperson