Just eight months after its good showing in the Lok Sabha polls, the INDIA bloc seems to be running out of steam with internal bickering and conflicting ambitions resulting in diminishing electoral returns that have once again put the BJP in the driver's seat in national politics.
With the defeat of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi, the number of INDIA bloc governments in the country has come down to eight -- Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
The INDIA bloc was formed in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls with parties, often at loggerheads with each other in states, coming together with the sole objective of defeating the BJP that seemed primed to better its previous tallies in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
They may have not managed to stop the BJP from coming to power but preventing the saffron party from getting a majority on its own was no mean feat.
The INDIA bloc parties had repeatedly insisted that the alliance was for national polls and later it would be on a state-by-state basis. However, it had not envisioned that the electoral fights in the states could get nasty, leading to cracks in the overall alliance. The Delhi polls have been a case in point.
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The Congress, the largest constituent of the INDIA bloc, ran a high-decibel campaign against AAP, leading to a lot of bad blood between the two parties.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra launched a no-holds-barred attack on AAP and its convener Arvind Kejriwal with jibes like "architect of the liquor scam" and "sheesh mahal" being a regular feature in their campaign speeches.
The INDIA bloc parties such as the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), though not having stakes in Delhi, threw their weight behind AAP on the grounds that it was best-suited to take on the BJP.
The distance between the Congress and smaller constituents of the INDIA bloc is growing as we saw in the Haryana polls when the Congress and AAP failed to strike an alliance and in Delhi where the two parties took on each other.
Though the INDIA bloc seems to be intact for the Bihar polls, the West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh elections in the coming years would test the alliance again as all constituents would find it difficult to come together.
The unease in the bloc and the consequences of bickering were being felt with many leaders voicing their disappointment with the result.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah passed a snide remark on the opposition parties over the Delhi assembly polls.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="hi" dir="ltr">Aur lado aapas mein!!! <a href="https://t.co/f3wbM1DYxk">https://t.co/f3wbM1DYxk</a> <a href="https://t.co/8Yu9WK4k0c">pic.twitter.com/8Yu9WK4k0c</a></p>— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) <a href="https://twitter.com/OmarAbdullah/status/1888071546344034707?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
"Aur lado aapas mein!!! (Keep on fighting each other)," Abdullah posted on X with a meme.
Expressing strong disappointment, the CPI(M) and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) said the differences in the INDIA bloc paved the way for the saffron party's good show in the national capital.
The Marxist party vehemently attacked the Congress and accused them of facilitating the victory of the BJP in Delhi.
The IUML, however, opted not to directly criticise the grand-old party but made it clear that if the partners of the INDIA bloc had fought the election unitedly, they could have successfully resisted the saffron party from coming to power.
Senior CPI(M) leader and the convener of the ruling LDF, T P Ramakrishnan, alleged that the Congress did not support well for the effective functioning of the INDIA block.
"There was no support from the side of the Congress. If the party had taken the initiative, the alliance could have functioned more effectively. But the grand old party did not fulfil its responsibility," he said.
Accusing the Congress, he said the party did not adopt a favourable stand in taking the INDIA bloc together and united.
Reacting to the BJP's victory in the Delhi polls, veteran IUML leader P K Kunhalikutty said it would not have happened if the partners in the INDIA bloc stood united.
Had everyone in the alliance stood together, the result would have been different, Kunhalikutty said.
Asked whether it was the Congress that was the reason for the lack of unity in the opposition alliance, the IUML veteran said there was no point in blaming a single party for the poll outcome.
"Everyone in the alliance should discuss this matter and evaluate the poll results," he said, adding that immediate steps should be taken not to repeat such things in future.
The future of the bloc seems uncertain with the Congress and AAP still not willing to reconcile their differences.
The Congress said the results of the Delhi Assembly election are not a vindication of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policies but a referendum on Arvind Kejriwal and AAP.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="hi" dir="ltr">2025 के दिल्ली विधानसभा चुनाव के नतीजे अरविंद केजरीवाल और आम आदमी पार्टी पर जनमत संग्रह से ज्यादा कुछ नहीं है। <br><br>जब 2015 और 2020 में प्रधानमंत्री की लोकप्रियता के चरम पर थी , तब भी AAP ने दिल्ली में निर्णायक जीत हासिल की थी। <br><br>दिल्ली के चुनाव नतीजे प्रधानमंत्री की नीतियों पर…</p>— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jairam_Ramesh/status/1888154342324146298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
"After all, at the height of the prime minister's popularity in 2015 and 2020, AAP had won decisively in Delhi. This shows that rather than being a vindication of the policies of the prime minister, this vote is a rejection of Arvind Kejriwal's politics of deceit, deception and vastly exaggerated claims of achievement," Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
If the INDIA bloc has to bounce back, it needs to set aside personal differences and ambitions and show the cohesiveness and understanding that was seen in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. Till it does not do that, it is BJP firmly in the saddle.
