By Rahul Dixit
The slip is clearly showing! The I.N.D.I Alliance has been jolted by its key allies at a crucial hour and the dream of stitching a united front to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the ensuing general elections is on the verge of going up in smoke. By refusing to form alliance with the Congress party during Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal and Punjab Ms. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Mr. Bhagwant Mann’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have sounded death knell for the so-called Third Front. Despite the reconciliatory tone by Congress leaders and other parties in the bloc, the I.N.D.I Alliance is definitely on the brink of collapse. It will be a battle between the BJP and other regional parties in their own capacities in the Lok Sabha elections.
Whatever the patch-work the Opposition bloc manages after the announcement by TMC and AAP to go solo in West Bengal and Punjab, the end product will be a rag-tag coalition limited to certain constituencies with no greater significance. Calling it a United Front of Opposition parties would be a joke given the strife within the alliance partners in various States. In a nutshell, Ms. Banerjee and Mr. Mann have announced the end of the I.N.D.I Alliance as other parties in the proposed coalition are bound to follow suit and fight their own battles.
By pulling a fast-one on the Congress in West Bengal and Punjab, TMC and AAP have made their intentions pretty clear. They are not ready to share the spoils won on their own dint in their own regions. Congress may be a regular player in most of the States but the parties who have established their fortress in their respective regions are not ready to sacrifice their seats for the sake of an alliance whose foundation itself is built on distrust and acrimony. Interestingly, it was AAP and TMC which had proposed Congress President Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge as the Prime Minister face of the I.N.D.I Alliance. The move had already caused unrest among the partner parties. Now, with the two allies choosing their own way, the path is clear for other parties too to concentrate on strengthening their own position in their regional belts instead of following the Congress agenda.
Mr. Banerjee was always averse for a truck with the Congress. The two have had major differences in the past and with the dominant position sought by the Gandhi family in the bloc the insecurities of the ambitious Ms. Banerjee overwhelmingly influenced her decision to fight her battle rather than being a pawn of a big party. Though the Congress has failed to guard its citadels in the general elections and many Assembly elections, it is still a national party worthy of recognition. The vote share it managed in the recent rout against the BJP in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh is noteworthy. This factor is not lost on the TMC and the AAP who have succeeded in expansion quite significantly and judiciously in the last five years. In this successful journey, Congress has remained their electoral foe all through. Making it a partner in a fortress built on hard work is a foolhardy idea whose time for the trash-bin had already come. By spelling it out in clear terms the TMC and AAP have brought it to a logical conclusion.
What the future holds for the I.N.D.I Alliance is known to all. The truth will be unraveled in the coming few days as differences between the regional partners start surfacing. The ‘cold war’ between Mr. Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is another indicator of the bloc losing its steam. The Congress now needs to find its own strategy to fight the charisma of Mr. Narendra Modi. And having Mr. Rahul Gandhi to lead that battle is not even a strategy!
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