Little I.N.D.I.A.

IN JUST FIVE SHORT months, the momentum in Indian politics has dramatically shifted. In the days after the BJP-led NDA’s underwhelming performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Lutyens’ illuminati was convinced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was no longer a vote winner. A platoon of Congress patricians even posited that Modi’s survival in politics now hinged only on the beneficence of two capricious power players. The Economist, perhaps economising on its famed judiciousness, wondered with barely disguised schadenfreude, “[H]as Narendra Modi lost his mojo?”

Today, as we end what has been a politically febrile year, it’s the opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc that is looking distinctly fragile. It’s leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi who appears vulnerable to the charge that he is the weakest link in team I.N.D.I.A.

The reason for the dramatic shift is a series of electoral reversals suffered by Congress-led I.N.D.I.A. after the Lok Sabha polls. The biggest among them is in the state of Maharashtra, the second most electorally consequential in the Indian Union.

By handing NDA a mammoth victory, Maharashtra’s voters have provided it a pretext to dismiss the Lok Sabha jolt as an aberration. A reversal triggered more by a ‘fake narrative’ spun by a desperate Opposition than any discernible loss of Modi’s pan-India appeal.

In Maharashtra, BJP has not only smashed a five-decade old electoral record but it has also come agonisingly close to winning the election on its own steam. If it has fallen short, it is because of its own modesty—the party only contested just over half the seats. BJP, which was the central pole holding up the NDA tent in Maharashtra, will take satisfaction from the fact that it has been able to re-establish itself as the catch-all party of disparate castes. While many will try to blot the victory by insinuating that BJP communalised the election to consolidate Hindus with its Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain slogan, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Ask yourselves, if spinning a catch-all religion-based invocation to unite Hindu voters is all it took, would BJP have fallen short in the General Election?

The fact is that BJP has been better able to present itself as the emissary of political nationalism and economic welfarism.

While the manner of its victory may be a fascinating case study for psephologists, to BJP it is but a stepping stone to the validation it needs to push ahead with its governance agenda.

Every ruling party needs to know that the public believes in its vision. The landslides in Haryana, Jammu, and Maharashtra are a signal to NDA that it can pursue transformational political and economic reforms.

While NDA gets a shot in the arm, the results constitute a potentially debilitating setback to I.N.D.I.A. Can the Opposition alliance hold if there are lingering doubts over its lynchpin Congress’ political adequacy?

Those speaking in defence of Congress may well point to the party’s success in Jharkhand where I.N.D.I.A. won a handsome mandate. But this is to miss the point completely. In almost every election Congress has won against BJP, barring two rare exceptions, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, the party has been pulled along by a powerful regional party. In Jharkhand, it was JMM supremo and incumbent Chief Minister Hemant Soren who succeeded in holding on to the all-important tribal voter by making his incarceration, in an alleged corruption case, a pride issue for his community. JMM, perhaps aware that Congress ended up second to BJP, even in a winning cause, has snubbed its alliance partner when it comes to sharing the spoils of power. That just about sums it up.

Assembly elections in Delhi and Assam now await Congress. If the party is hoping to regain influence on the Opposition benches, it has a lot of work to do. Especially in Delhi where it didn’t open its account in the last Assembly election.

More reversals of the type witnessed in Maharashtra will only convince I.N.D.I.A. members that their Congress cohort has become a liability. Would this prompt the alliance to decouple from Congress? Watch this space.

CongressI.N.D.I.A.Leader of OppositionRahul GandhiSonia Gandhi