It has been nearly three months since the last meeting of the INDIA bloc — the overarching anti-BJP pre-poll coalition. In its period of inactivity, the Congress’s consistent supporter and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin stood alongside the Congress’s persistent critic and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav while unveiling former Prime Minister V.P. Singh’s statue in Chennai’s Presidency College on Monday, posturing that the bloc need not necessarily run along the hub-spoke model with the Congress sitting as the central pivot.
With the Congress focused on the election campaign in five States — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, the INDIA bloc has faded into the background. The last meeting was held in Mumbai on August 31-September 1. The long awaited joint rally meant to herald INDIA bloc’s 2024 campaign that was to be held in Bhopal, as per announcement made by INDIA bloc’s coordination panel on September 13, did not happen.
Mr. Yadav in the run-up to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, where vote was cast on November 17, publicly railed against the Congress for not conceding five seats that the Samajwadi Party expected after assurances from the Congress’s central leadership and negotiation talks at the State level. Irrespective of the December 3 result in his various sound bites, Mr. Yadav has already made it clear that the seat negotiations in Uttar Pradesh between his party and the Congress are unlikely to be easy. “Out of the 80 seats, currently the Congress holds only Rae Bareilly. And they stood second in Amethi where Rahul Gandhi fought, Kanpur where Sriprakash Jaiswal fought and Fatehpur Sikri where Raj Babbar fought. So, in our estimation, they deserve to have only these four,” a senior Samajwadi Party leader said. The Congress insiders claim that Mr. Yadav’s bellicose stance against the Congress is because of the fear of losing the Muslim electorate to them. For the Congress, an offering of just four seats could be a deal breaker.
Politically significant
The Samajwadi Party sees Monday’s event as a politically significant step towards building cooperation between the regional parties within the INDIA bloc, but the DMK insists that the event should be taken at its face value. “V.P. Singh was the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, so we wanted Uttar Pradesh to be represented. It does not clash in any way with the INDIA bloc’s objective,” DMK spokesperson T.K.S. Elangovan said.
The Congress also feels that such sub-groups cannot exert any significant pressure on the State political equations. Praveen Chakravarty, Chairman, Professionals’ Congress, said, “Tamil Nadu is the one State where there is a loud and clear resentment of the BJP. Most surveys show that a big majority of Tamilians want the Congress in Centre and Rahul Gandhi as their next Prime Minister. So it is the Congress that will pull in votes in Tamil Nadu in a Parliament election.”
But DMK-SP bonhomie is not the only sub equation within the INDIA bloc. For the Aam Aadmi Party, the Congress is the principal opposition party in the two States it rules — Delhi and Punjab. The AAP has often used Trinamool Congress and the Left as a medium to communicate with the Congress. It was the TMC and Left that eased their entry into the INDIA bloc.
