The INDIA bloc has classified states into three categories for 2024 Lok Sabha seat-sharing. But 4 losses in 5 Assembly polls have put Congress on the backfoot.
Opposition bloc INDIA meeting in Mumbai. (INCIndia/ X)
If its landslide victory in the Karnataka Assembly elections put the Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) into shape, the abysmal performance of the Congress in Assembly polls of three key states — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh — has no doubt led to creeping doubts.
On Tuesday, 19 December, when the INDIA-bloc parties sit together for the fourth time, they will have a humbled Congress with reduced negotiating power, assertive regional parties that won’t want to cede more than bare essential space, and the big question: What is INDIA bloc’s narrative?
With miffed allies like Akhilesh Yadav and Nitish Kumar, divided houses like the parties of Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, demanding partners like Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee, and solid backers like MK Stalin, Farooq Abdullah, and Lalu Prasad Yadav, the discussions of messaging, campaigning, and resource-pooling will all take a backseat, with seat-sharing emerging as the primary concern.
To make the process of seat-sharing easier, the INDIA bloc, it seems, has categorised states into three large groups.
In the first category are states where the Congress is independently the single most important contender against the BJP.
Karnataka, Telangana (where the BRS is not a part of the INDIA bloc or the BJP-led NDA yet), Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh (since both the TDP and the YSRCP aren’t part of either alliance), Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Rajasthan fall in this category, thanks to the sheer presence of Congress or/and the absence of other INDIA-bloc parties.
In the second category are states where regional parties of the INDIA bloc are the most potent contenders against the BJP. In other words, these are states where the Congress is a smaller partner. Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir fall under this list.
“The first two categories are pretty much clear. Wherever the Congress is the strongest, it can cede one or two seats to allies and expect to get a smaller number of seats than the regional partner in states that fall in the second category. The problem states there could be [the likes of] Uttar Pradesh. It is this third category of states that are the challenge,” a senior member of the AICC’s campaign team told South First.
States in the third category are those where INDIA-bloc parties are directly in contest with each other. West Bengal, Kerala, Delhi, Punjab, and Maharashtra are the possible problem states. However, the alliance seems to already have a solution for two of them.
In Kerala, the contest is directly between the Congress and Left parties. There, contesting in alliance and fielding joint candidates will only benefit the BJP, which has no presence in the state. The INDIA bloc would rather contest against each other and keep the BJP out.
In West Bengal, where the BJP stands to gain from a split in anti-BJP votes and is gaining ground, a joint fight from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Left and the Congress — although they are rivals in the state — is being considered to ensure consolidation.
In Maharashtra, the seats are to be split between the Congress and the factions of the NCP and the Shiv Sena. While leaders of all three parties are sure of arriving at compromises, Punjab and Delhi — where the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is in direct contest with the Congress — are set to throw up the real challenge.
“[Samajwadi Party chief] Akhilesh Yadav needs the Congress in Uttar Pradesh to win seats. Taking on the BJP by himself is not an option given that Mayawati’s BSP has a vote share of 15 percent that doesn’t flinch. Kejriwal’s AAP, too, needs consolidation of votes. However, he is expected to make hard bargains in Punjab, where the Congress, too, has a robust organisation and wouldn’t want to cede too much space,” noted a member of the Congress’ election strategy team.
While wading through the troubled waters of seat-sharing, the INDIA bloc will also have to decide on its narrative.
While the expulsion of TMC MP Mahua Moitra and the suspension of close to 100 MPs from the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in less than a week has given common issues for the bloc to unite on, the results of recent elections — although not a referendum — have shown that the Congress as a party and the INDIA bloc have not cracked the Hindi-Hindu heartland, where the BJP strikes gold.
Political pundits and news channel experts have passed their verdict, that the Congress’ social justice pitch was its undoing in the recently-concluded Assembly elections.
Riding high on its stupendous electoral victory in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, the BJP ran with the social justice narrative.
Snatching the pitch from Congress, the BJP turned it into seeming action by installing a tribal chief minister (Vishnu Deo Sai) in Chhattisgarh, an OBC chief minister (Mohan Yadav) in Madhya Pradesh, but not without appointing a Brahmin chief minister (Bhajanlal Sharma) in Rajasthan.
The BJP has since been reiterating that the Congress only speaks of social justice while the saffron party believes in upholding it — while a vast section of political pundits has been dissing the social justice pitch.
If the idea was to dissuade the Congress — and by extension the Opposition’s INDIA bloc — from pursuing social justice or a caste census as a primary component of their campaign for Lok Sabha 2024, it seems the party has other plans.
“The BJP and the media would like the Congress or the INDIA bloc to stop talking about social justice,” said an AICC office-bearer involved in strategies for Congress.
“We are doubling down on the social justice pitch,” a senior member of the party’s campaign team told South First.
Caste assertion alone can break religious polarisation, and it seems senior leaders of the INDIA bloc have realised the potency of pushing for caste census and social justice. The pitch is on point, but its messaging has been the drawback, leaders feel.
In the run-up to 2024 Lok Sabha polls, social justice and employment are set to take centerstage for the INDIA bloc if they weather past the seat-sharing and common campaign discussions.
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