Scrutinizing I.N.D.I Alliance Ahead of 2024 General Election 2024 Part-1- Face of The Alliance

The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (short form I.N.D.I.A or INDI Alliance) was formed, comprising 28 parties, to contest against BJP led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) in forth coming 2024 general election. The never-reducing popularity of Narendra Modi & the capability of BJP’s election machinery literally forced those opposition parties to stand united despite their inherent contradiction in political ideology, incompatibility in some spaces & difference of opinions on various issues to fight against BJP politically in the parliamentary election.

In Indian politics, no one can ever predict how alliances will perform in a particular election. Many a time, even pollsters fail to gauge the public mood. The diverse nature of polity in India creates a complex political character and thus no issue can be pinpointed for a party or alliance to win or lose. But then objectively, we can do a scrutiny of the present INDI alliance and their capability to take on mighty NDA. In this process, I intend to write several articles examining various aspects of this INDI alliance. In this article, I am examining the issue of the leadership of the INDI Alliance because if you want to fight against NDA with face of Narendra Modi, you need a credible face of the alliance.

Before that, let’s understand the political equation of the present Indian polity. Yashwant Deshmukh, a top pollster of the country had well explained the political equation of BJP in a simple 100-200-243 theory. According to him,  BJP is totally absent in 100 seats. Such states are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, etc. It’s very strong in 200 seats where Congress is the rival. Those areas are Gujarat, Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, Uttara Khand, Himachal Pradesh, etc. Then there are 243 seats where the BJP and NDA have either non-Congress rivals or UPA rivals. Those are UP, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Telangana, Odisha, Northeast, etc. Thus, to defeat  BJP and NDA, the INDI Alliance need to win or focus in those 443 seats. This paragraph will serve for all the scrutiny of strength or weakness of the INDI Alliance. Let’s go to the leadership or face issue of INDI Alliance.

As Congress has direct contest with BJP in more than 200 seats, naturally the leadership face should come from Congress party. Rahul Gandhi is the only commanding leader of Congress whom the party sees as next Prime Minister and the best candidate as an alternative to Narendra Modi. The point is whether the rest of the INDI alliance sees Rahul Gandhi as the leader of the alliance. The answer is no. It’s evident from the recent INDI Alliance meeting in Delhi on 19^th December 2023, when TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee proposed Mallikarjun Kharge’s name as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the alliance and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal supported the proposal.

That means many parties of INDI Alliance are not confident of Rahul Gandhi’s leadership to lead the alliance. The reason might be that wherever Congress is in direct contest with BJP, the later is very strong. Also, it’s been observed from 2014 to till recent assembly elections, that Congress’s central party’s organisational capability is very weak. If Congress wins in some assemblies, it’s due to the credibility and popularity of the regional or state leaders. But in national politics, Congress remained way behind BJP. This failure of Congress naturally attributed to it’s top leadership and that’s why perhaps TMC, AAP & many other parties apprehending that upper hand of Narendra Modi over Rahul Gandhi in BJP-Congress rivalry may even spill over to their influence area if Rahul Gandhi becomes the face of the alliance.

However, I am yet to understand the proposal of Mallikarjun Kharge as the face of the alliance. Kharge himself is not considered as the leader of all Congress supporters, despite being the president of the party. Kharge has some grass-roots support in the region of Karnataka but doesn’t have that stature in national politics. Leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Stalin or other regional satrap may have great influence in their states but can’t be considered as a pan-Indian leader to counter Narendra Modi.

Arvind Kejriwal could have been the name despite his party mostly limited to Delhi & Punjab because Kejriwal has a stature in national politics. But neither Congress nor other regional satraps ever agree to his name for obvious reasons. So, it appears that there would be difficulty in finding a face of alliance, although the general election is fast approaching.

What if the INDI alliance contests the election without a face or a prime ministerial candidate? In 2004, there were no prime ministerial candidates and yet Vajpayee led NDA lost the election.

I see two problems with this strategy. First, a faceless alliance would be considered as there’s inherent disagreement over the leadership. If there’s disagreement, then in this social media era, people are smart enough to understand that the alliance has no common basis and even may be an opportunistic one. In 2004 also UPA didn’t win the election alone. It has formed government, taking support from other parties who are not in UPA and competing against UPA. The INDI Alliance is now accommodated all those parties which were also contesting against UPA in assembly elections. Thus, the face of alliance is required to show the public that they are united.

Second is, BJP in Modi-Shah era is very different from the BJP of Vajpayee-Advani era. The present BJP is always election-ready through their 24×7 electoral machinery and has very strong organizational mechanism. In 2004, many BJP MPs lost because of anti-incumbency and the then BJP top brass couldn’t dare to refuse ticket to unpopular MPs. Present BJP not only refuses tickets to MPs/MLAs who are unpopular, even refuses CM post to the existing CMs or former CMs who are apparently even popular. This strict politics may be the strength of BJP.

So, the important issue at the hand of INDI alliance is to decide the face of the alliance or the Prime Ministerial candidate. If they can’t settle it, then they will really fail to even take off their fight against BJP and NDA.