The chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, took a cheeky dig at the sabre-rattling between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party that helped the Bharatiya Janata Party pocket Delhi. There is, of course, that little matter of Mr Abdullah’s National Conference locking horns with the Peoples Democratic Party that had jolted the INDIA coalition in Kashmir before the general election. But the larger point — and this has been endorsed by chief ministers such as Mamata Banerjee and A. Revanth Reddy recently — is that some of INDIA’s constituents seem to be repeatedly working at cross purposes, leading to debacles in electoral contests. Data bear out this inference. Numbers suggest that in Delhi, 14 seats among the 48 that were won by the BJP could have gone to the AAP if it had chosen to be in a strategic alliance with the Congress. Earlier, in Haryana, the AAP spoilt the Congress’s chances in half a dozen seats. The problem is not limited to the turf rivalry between the Congress and the AAP. The Congress and the Left are allies nationally but fight tooth and nail in Kerala. Post elections, Maharashtra presents an even more confounding picture for the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi with Sharad Pawar heaping praise on Eknath Shinde and Saamana, the mouthpiece of the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray, lauding Devendra Fadnavis. These confusing signals are damaging in terms of optics. But the fragmented Opposition is perhaps too busy feuding to notice that.
This raises two intriguing questions. First, is it possible for parties that compete regionally to be national allies? Such an arrangement, despite the Opposition’s dishevelled appearance, is not inconceivable. In fact, INDIA had succeeded in clipping the BJP’s wings to some extent in the last parliamentary polls. But sustaining success among such strange bedfellows would depend on seamless coordination and consensual strategising. Both these elements — the proverbial glue for such a political alliance — seem to be missing as far as INDIA is concerned. The second question is equally consequential. Is the lack of electoral success an impediment when it comes to keeping a disparate but ambitious flock together? INDIA’s allies have lost Haryana, Maharashtra and now Delhi. The victories in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir may have offered some compensation but these states are political lightweights. INDIA has to put its house in order. Else Bihar, the next electoral test, could be an equally dismal story for it.