By Dr. Gyan Pathak
BJP has said that neither INDIA bloc, nor Congress has any future. Such a wishful statement of BJP has come out after senior Congress leader P Chidambaram’s opinion that he did not see INDIA bloc is intact, and was uncertain whether it would remain intact. He said he would be very happy if the INDIA bloc is completely intact, “but it seems frail” and “the future is not so bright”. As against this he described the BJP as “formidably organized”. Nevertheless, in the fast-changing Indian political spectrum, such opinions are only passing remarks having no or little bearing on rise and fall of a political party or alliance.
No doubt, there have been stains within the INDIA bloc, and there have also been setbacks in state elections just after the gains in Lok Sabha elections 2024, but the future of the INDIA bloc is not yet completely decimated. There is still hope for the bloc since it represents the secular democratic forces as against the communal autocratic forces within the society and the entire political spectrum. We have just seen it in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, in which communal forces both from Muslims and Hindus failed to communalize, divide, or polarize the people of the country on communal lines. It creates great hope for the secular and democratic political forces, while it signals that the future of the communal politics is not bright in the long run.
Let us recall Chidambaram’s statement in which he said, “There is still time. There are still events which will unfold.” In order to take on the BJP’s dominance, the INDIA bloc has to challenge it on multiple fronts.
On BJP, he said, “In my experience and reading of history, there has been no political party as formidably organised as the BJP. In every department, it’s formidable. It’s not another political party. It’s a machine behind which it’s a machine, and the two machines control all the machinery of India, from the Election Commission of India to the lowest police station in India; they are able to control or sometimes capture these institutions.”
Chidambaram delves upon the importance of the 2029 Lok Sabha election. He presumed only two scenario – first, it may strengthen BJP’s formidable missionary and then we are beyond repair; or second, it must return us to a full-fledged democracy.
What Chidambaram indicated, and rightly so, that political battle is going to be intensified between secular democratic political parties represented by INDIA bloc and the opposition and the Hindutva autocratic political party led by BJP. It would be secular vs communal, democratic vs autocratic. Then there would be many other known and unknown factors that may come into the picture. Therefore, BJP’s claim that neither INDIA bloc nor Congress has any future is wrong. We have already seen, how PM Modi and his party have been campaigning for “Congress Free India” but the Congress came back with a bang, and BJP reduced to minority in Lok Sabha Election 2024, and could win only 240 seats.
BJP has reasons to be concerned that people of India did not react to the Pahalgam terror attack on communal lines. RSS-BJP clan has not even been successful so far in deriving political mileage from Indo-Pak confrontation, though they have been trying their best to politicize the matter in favour of BJP. The heroism of the defence forces could not be transferred as the heroism of the PM Modi or BJP.
It means political reality and sentiments on the ground is being changing, that tends to moving away from the communal mindset to the hard realities of life which includes joblessness, cost of living crisis, threat to democracy, threat to free speech, and so on. The ground realities will take care of not only the survival of the Congress but also the INDIA bloc, irrespective of strains within them and lack of formidable organisational structure both at party or alliance level.
The forthcoming election in Bihar in later 2025 is a case in point. Future of INDIA bloc does not seem bleak. Mahagathbandhan there is intact, and is a formidable force against the ruling NDA led by CM Nitish Kumar. The Congress, the RJD, and the Left political parties are united in fight against BJP.
Next year in 2026, Assam, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal would go to polls. Barring Assam, BJP has nowhere an upper hand. INDIA bloc led by DMK is strong in Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s TMC is stronger and capable of fighting on her own with the BJP. Congress and the Left political parties are already at the margins of the political scenario in the state. In Kerala, the fight is between the Congress led UDF and the CPI(M) led LDF. Whoever wins, it is the win of INDIA bloc.
In 2027, Elections will be held in Goa, Gujarat, Manipur, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh is intact. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has already announced that next election in the state would be fought by unitedly by INDIA bloc. It would be Congress vs BJP in Uttarakhand as usual. BJP has little strength in Punjab. In Manipur, social tension and ethnic riots have earned bad name for the BJP. BJP is still stronger in Goa and Gujarat, but antagonism against BJP at the ground level may favour opposition to dent in BJP’s support base.
Modi government’s announcement of assuring caste census is indicative of the fact that ground level politics is shifting away from religious communal sentiments to social justice. BJP hopes to get some benefit by announcing caste census, but its problem is that beneficiaries of Dalit, OBC, and minority politics are chiefly those political parties which are with opposition, or INDIA bloc. BJP has a desperate battle ahead to fight in 2029 with INDIA bloc and the opposition. (IPA Service)
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