Haryana Loss Has Cut Congress to Size in INDIA Bloc and Allies are Not Mincing Words

There is trouble in paradise. Following the Lok Sabha election results in June, the INDIA bloc was in celebratory mood. But the BJP’s thrilling and unexpected win in Haryana elections on Tuesday has sent shockwaves throughout the opposition alliance. At the center of allies’ ire is Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who was made the Leader of Opposition following the Lok Sabha poll results.

Leaders in the alliance are not mincing words given the Congress’s defeat in what was essentially its election to lose. The most vocal was Trinamool Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale.

“This attitude leads to electoral losses… ‘if we feel we’re winning, we will not accommodate any regional party… but in states where we’re down, regional parties must accommodate us’. Arrogance, entitlement, & looking down on regional parties is a recipe for disaster… Learn!” Gokhale posted on X.

AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha, too, seemingly taunted the Congress on its ambitions. “If the Congress had taken care of its desire, then perhaps the results could have been different,” Chadha said.

While the AAP and Congress are partners in the INDIA bloc, they fought separately in Haryana because of disagreements in seat-sharing. Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was reportedly adamant that the AAP should not be given more than five seats. “We don’t need AAP or anyone to form the government,” Hooda had told News18.

As a result, the AAP contested on almost all 90 seats and failed to win a single seat while the Congress let a clincher slip out of its hands.

The Congress could feel the repercussions of its Haryana disaster in Maharashtra elections scheduled later this year, especially when it sits down for seat-sharing talks with allies NCP-Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena-UBT.

So far, the Congress had been demanding a big share in seats in Maharashtra and some leaders went to the extent of suggesting that the Congress should have its own chief ministerial nominee in case the Maha Vikas Aghadi wins.

With the INDIA bloc partners pointing out the Congress’s inability to convert seats into wins, the grand old party cannot arm-twist allies or assert itself in the foreseeable elections.

“The Congress must rework its strategy, especially when it comes to straight fights between the BJP and Congress,” Shiv Sena-UBT MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said after the Haryana election results.

After Maharashtra, comes Delhi. The Congress and AAP has struck up an alliance in Delhi for the Lok Sabha elections, but came out without a single MP in the national capital. With the Delhi Assembly going to polls next year, will the AAP want an alliance with the Congress considering the latter’s diminished relevance in the city-state? Will the AAP pay back the Congress in kind and say it doesn’t need the grand old party to win Delhi elections?

Even in Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference won 36 seats more than the Congress. The two parties had a pre-poll tie-up in the Union Territory but in the middle of campaigning, Omar Abdullah had to question why the Congress was not campaigning in Jammu, following which Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra held their first rallies there.

The INDIA bloc is clearly in no mood to tolerate an all-bark-no-bite big brother.