All is not well with the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc. The Opposition front faced yet another electoral defeat. The Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was trounced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti in Maharashtra.
While poll results aren't favourable, the aftermath was visible in bloc's Monday meeting called by the Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.
The first one to withdraw from the meeting was the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The Mamata Banerjee-led party said its leaders were busy at their national executive meeting in Kolkata.
The meeting wasn't held on just another random day. It was the first day of the Parliament's winter session. As the TMC convincingly won all six assembly seats that went for bypolls in West Bengal, the party's general secretary Kunal Ghosh signalled unease within the Congress' ‘big brother’ attitude in the alliance.
“Mamata Banerjee has blocked the BJP in every election. Hemant Soren has also stopped the BJP in Jharkhand. But in Maharashtra, they (Congress) could not stop the BJP," Ghosh said while advising the Congress to "analyse themselves".
"If it can happen in Bengal and Jharkhand, why did the Congress fail to stop the BJP in Haryana and Maharashtra? The Congress should analyse why it lost. Whenever the responsibility has fallen on Congress, it has been unable to stop the BJP," he added.
The TMC's resentment took a serious turn when its leader, Kalyan Banerjee, suggested that Mamata Banerjee should be made the leader of the INDIA bloc.
According to a News18 report, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made three "mistakes" that the allies feel impacted the bloc.
Rahul Gandhi engaged himself with attacks on Veer Savarkar. Both Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, head of a faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), had a problem with this.
After the poll debacle in Maharashtra, both leaders felt that Gandhi's attack on Savarkar hurt them and helped the BJP with its agenda of “batenge toh katenge". Despite warnings that it would cause harm, News18 reported. Gandhi did not pay heed and continued on his path.
Rahul Gandhi's demand for caste survey and the Congress' inability to counter BJP's narrative of end to reservation if the grand old party came to power was another factor that cost the Opposition alliance.
The narrative's intensity could potentially affect allies such as the TMC, Samajwadi Party (SP), and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the run-up to subsequent state elections.
Gandhi's attack on Prime Minister as being involved in crony capitalism was also something that the allies felt would just not work. According to News18 report, the allies requested Gandhi to refrain from advancing this narrative, but he refused to give up.
The report also cited sources as saying that some within Gandhi’s group, too, had advised him against the “Constitution in danger" narrative.
It is this “stubbornness" that has now hurt the allies.
