The cracks within the INDIA bloc are no longer whispers, they’re now on record.
Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram has openly questioned the cohesion of the Opposition alliance, warning that it appears “frayed at the seams” and might not withstand the political juggernaut that is the BJP.
Speaking at the launch of Salman Khurshid and Mritunjay Singh Yadav's book "Contesting Democratic Deficit", Chidambaram said, "The future (of INDIA bloc) is not so bright, as Mritunjay Singh Yadav said. He seems to feel that the alliance is still intact, but I am not sure. It is only Salman (Khurshid) who can answer because he was part of the negotiating team for the INDIA bloc. If the alliance is totally intact, I will be very happy. But it shows at the seams that it is frayed," Chidambaram, a Rajya Sabha MP, said.
He also hoped that the alliance can "still be put together, there's still time".
The former Union finance minister warned that the INDIA bloc was fighting against a "formidable machinery", which must be fought on all fronts.
"In my experience and my reading of history, there has been no political party so formidably organised as the BJP. It's not just another political party. It's a machine behind a machine and the two machines control all the machineries in India.
"From the Election Commission to the lowest police station in the country, they (BJP) are able to control and sometimes capture these institutions. It is a formidable machinery, as much as can be allowed in a democracy," Chidambaram said.
In the book, Khurshid and Yadav reflect on the Congress' revival efforts ahead of last year's Lok Sabha elections -- from the emotionally-charged "Bharat Jodo Yatra" to the "historic" formation of the INDIA bloc comprising diverse political forces.
Khurshid and Yadav recount how the opposition parties rallied "to defend the idea of an inclusive, pluralistic India".
Chidambaram said that poll results have shown that no one can undermine elections in India, which “still remains an electoral democracy".
"You can interfere with elections in India. You can tinker with them. But you can't get away with elections. You can't have elections where the ruling party gets away with 98 per cent of the votes... That is not possible in India," Chidambaram said.
The Congress leader added that if the 2029 general elections take a decisive turn to strengthen the BJP, “we are beyond repair”.
“The 2029 elections are critical and must return us to a full-fledged democracy," he said.
Concurring with Chidambaram, Khurshid said there were issues concerning the INDIA bloc that needed to be addressed.
"We need to address the concerns. The takeaway from Chidambaram's views is that we have to be prepared for a very major battle in 2029. We have to deal with the whole idea of how to get the alliance partners together," the former foreign minister said.
He added that the opposition parties needed to think on a larger scale if they were to "make a massive reversal" in the electoral trends.
"What we have learnt is that we must think on a larger scale. If we only think how many seats we will contest and what will happen once the results are out, we will miss out on the major thing we set out to do, which is to affect a massive reversal of electoral trends in the country," the Congress leader said.
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