Congress may lose bargaining chip in I.N.D.I.A as the bloc meets on Dec 6

New Delhi: With the Congress faring badly in the latest edition of Assembly elections in Hindi heartland, the leaders of the I.N.D.I.A will meet here on Wednesday to find ways to bring the Opposition alliance back on track after remaining inactive for the past three months.

The Congress may not be going into the meeting with an upper hand as it expected, with the party being unable to break the shackles in the one-on-one fight against the BJP though it managed to drown the BRS, a regional party, in Telangana.

There were demands for early conclusion of seat sharing for Lok Sabha elections but the Congress was not in its favour claiming that it was too early for the exercise, an articulation that was read as the party’s inclination to wait for favourable results in December to enable a better bargain.

On the backfoot now, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will host top Opposition leaders on December 6 evening where they are expected to look at the results and chart a course of action to bounce back in the next couple of months and steer the bloc to an advantageous position.

Kharge posted on ‘X’, “we will overcome temporary setbacks and prepare ourselves fully for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections along with the I.N.D.I.A parties.”

The results have raised questions about the Congress' ability to take the BJP head on in Hindi heartland and parties like Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, RJD and JD(U) may use it as a bargaining chip in the seat sharing talks in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Samajwadi Party has already made it clear that the Congress will face the music when it comes to Uttar Pradesh where they are in the driving seat after the seat sharing talks with Congress collapsed in Madhya Pradesh in an ignominious way.

It sowed the seeds for discomfort in the bloc after Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav taking on the Congress, especially after Kamal Nath refused to cede around half -a-dozen seats to the latter. Kamal Nath's remarks "Akhilesh-Vakhilesh" added fuel to the fire, as Akhilesh took it as a personal insult.

“This is a lesson for all democratic and secular parties. Unity is imperative to fight the BJP. We must draw proper lessons from the developments,” CPI General Secretary D Raja told DH.

With the BJP making huge gains in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and improving its position in Telangana, Congress’ victory in the southern state may also not translate into a big gain in the Lok Sabha elections in the region, which has 132 seats.

Congress was expecting to reduce the Karnataka Lok Sabha seats from 26 with a win in Telangana but the BJP performance in the southern state has not added comfort to the former. BJP has 32 seats from South India.

The major task for the bloc will be to rejuvenate itself, as I.N.D.I.A was out of political discussions for the past around three months after its meeting in Mumbai.

Even when it was talked about, it was for negative reasons like Kamal Nath unilaterally cancelled an I.N.D.I.A rally to be held in Bhopal while Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the bloc was inactive due to Congress’ preoccupation with the elections. CPI(M) also made it clear that it would not name a representative for I.N.D.I.A’s coordination committee. (ENDS)