The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, or INDIA, once heralded as the grand anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition, now teeters at the edge of irrelevance. Its survival is hanging by the thinnest of threads as internal contradictions, personal ambitions and regional rivalries chip away at its foundation. What began as an urgent alliance of necessity to counter the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election now resembles a house divided. The recent electoral drubbing in Delhi, coupled with reverses in Maharashtra and Haryana last year, has only underscored the alliance’s vulnerabilities—an uneasy mix of ideological divergences, historical baggage and an utter lack of coordination, all conspiring to weaken what was touted as a formidable national alternative.
Even after 11 years, three Lok Sabha elections, and three Assembly polls, the Congress has failed to convince Delhi’s voters that it is a serious contender capable of forming a government. The party remains stuck in a cycle of irrelevance, unable to shake off its image as an electoral non-starter. Alarmingly Congress got Zero seats in all last six elections. Despite strong anti-incumbency against the Aam Aadmi Party in this election, Congress was widely dismissed as a ‘wasted vote’, failing to position itself as a viable alternative.
With no confidence in its ability to challenge the BJP, anti-BJP voters had little choice but to rally behind AAP. Many believe that Congress’s biggest blunder was its most familiar indecisiveness. This habitual reluctance to take clear, bold positions once again cost the party dearly, leaving it sidelined in yet another Delhi election. Instead of capitalising on anti-incumbency and asserting itself as the primary opposition in Delhi, the Congress struggled to define its stance against AAP, its INDIA bloc ally. The party found itself caught between political compulsions and strategic hesitations, ultimately failing to make a decisive impact.
At the outset, Congress MP Ajay Maken took a hardline approach, calling AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal “anti-national” and vowing to expose him as a traitor in a press conference. However, pressure from INDIA bloc allies led the Congress high command to intervene, resulting in the event being deferred. This indecision weakened the party’s attack on AAP and created confusion within its ranks.
Rahul Gandhi initially launched a strong offensive against Kejriwal and AAP during his first rally on January 13, but medical reasons kept him off the campaign trail for nearly two weeks. In his absence, neither Priyanka Gandhi nor Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge stepped in to take charge, leaving the Delhi Congress unit directionless.
This lack of leadership and clarity cost the party dearly. By the time Congress realised the shifting political mood in Delhi, it was too late to mount an effective challenge. The failure to craft a coherent strategy allowed the BJP to consolidate its position, while Congress struggled to carve out a meaningful role for itself in the state’s political landscape.
Beyond its indecisiveness, the Congress also failed to appeal to its traditional vote banks, particularly minorities and Dalits, who had long shifted their support to AAP.
Despite strong anti-incumbency against the Aam Aadmi Party in this election, Congress was widely dismissed as a ‘wasted vote’, failing to position itself as a viable alternative. With no confidence in its ability to challenge the BJP, anti-BJP voters had little choice but to rally behind AAP. Many believe that Congress’s biggest blunder was its most familiar indecisiveness. This habitual reluctance to take clear, bold positions once again cost the party dearly, leaving it sidelined in yet another Delhi election.
Instead of capitalising on anti-incumbency and asserting itself as the primary opposition in Delhi, the Congress struggled to define its stance against AAP, its INDIA bloc ally. The party found itself caught between political compulsions and strategic hesitations, ultimately failing to make a decisive impact.
Rahul Gandhi initially launched a strong offensive against Kejriwal and AAP during his first rally on January 13, but medical reasons kept him off the campaign trail for nearly two weeks. In his absence, neither Priyanka Gandhi nor Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge stepped in to take charge, leaving the Delhi Congress unit directionless.
This lack of leadership and clarity cost the party dearly. By the time Congress realised the shifting political mood in Delhi, it was too late to mount an effective challenge. The failure to craft a coherent strategy allowed the BJP to consolidate its position, while Congress struggled to carve out a meaningful role for itself in the state’s political landscape.
However, the minority community remained firmly with AAP, seeing it as the only viable force to counter the BJP’s dominance under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.
Many minority voters admitted they were inclined to vote for Congress but ultimately refrained, viewing the party as too weak to mount a serious challenge in what had become a direct battle between the BJP and AAP.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi’s devastating defeat in Maharashtra brought the Congress back to square one. After the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the odds were stacked against the Mahayuti alliance, and the Grand Old Party had an opportunity to upset the Bharatiya Janata Party’s apple cart by scoring a victory in Maharashtra.
However, the MVA’s shocking performance dashed hopes of a Congress revival on the national canvas and undid gains made in the Lok Sabha elections. It also deflated its main poll planks of “saving the Constitution” and the caste census that had found takers during the Lok Sabha poll. While the Congress remains in denial, the difference in planning and preparedness between it and the BJP is evident. The saffron party started working on its weaknesses from day one. It had several checks and balances in place.
The Congress party’s casual attitude and overconfidence became its biggest undoing. The party did not seem to be in the game — in action mode, ready to fight. While the BJP moved in with one strategy after another, the Congress had no strategy to counter it. Its candidates were left to fend for themselves amid an onslaught from the ruling alliance.
It was a unique opportunity for the Congress to reclaim power after a decade of BJP rule. Buoyed by a surprising show in the Lok Sabha election, where it bagged five out of 10 seats after drawing a blank in the previous two national polls, the Congress entered the fray for the Haryana Assembly with renewed optimism, boosted also by widespread anti-incumbency against the BJP. Yet the grand old party failed to secure a majority, a significant rise in vote share notwithstanding. Here are the five key reasons why the Congress fell short in this crucial election.
Overconfidence and complacency: After the unexpected success in the Lok Sabha election, where Congress won half of the 10 seats, the party’s confidence swelled, leading to complacency. With a palpable anti-incumbency sentiment against the BJP’s 10-year rule, Congress assumed it would emerge victorious, especially with the diminishing influence of regional parties such as the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). This overconfidence caused the leadership, particularly under former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, to make arbitrary decisions on ticket distribution, sparking internal rebellions that weakened the party’s chances in several key constituencies.
In the history of party building in India, the saga of the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) growth will remain an aberration. It essentially emerged out of a “flash mob” movement that metamorphosed into an organisation which defied all descriptions of a classical political party.
But the successive decimation of Congress, a legacy party with a rich history of participation in the freedom struggle and near monopoly on the nationalist movement till Independence, is worrisome. The party had built its organisational structure not by fluke but by dint of hard work and meticulous planning by geniuses like Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi.
If Gokhale was a modernist with a reformist outlook, Tilak followed the path of tradition and did not hesitate to associate religion with his politics. Gandhi proved to be the biggest mobiliser for the party; he not only opened the party to the masses but also co-opted people from diverse backgrounds to give the organisation dynamism and depth. That was the precise reason Congress contained almost all strands of Indian politics within its fold.
The trajectory of Congress’s growth shows that it consistently positioned itself as left of centre after Independence while incorporating within it the broad features of what is now known as Hindutva. It always stood against the language and idioms of regionalism and casteism that came into full play in the late 1960s and led to the party’s marginalisation in certain states. Yet the party stood its ground to prove its nationalist credentials and did not cede space to regional forces. It was the remnants of the organisational legacy that enabled it to return to power in 2004.
Since 2014, however, the party seems to be not only thoroughly disarrayed organisationally but also acquiring a grammar that was alien to it historically. Take, for instance, how the party wildly fluctuated from “janeudhari Brahmin” to caste census and “the fight against the Indian state” by way of reinventing its political vocabulary. There is nothing wrong in a political party reorienting itself by rearranging its lexicon and adapting it to the changing times by making conscious choices. But that does not seem to be the case here.
If you contrast this with the BJP, you will find it has continued to break regional and social barriers by adapting itself to the new political realities in a rather seamless manner. Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had nothing to do with either the precursors of the BJP or the RSS. They belonged to Congress. Yet they have been fully internalised as icons within the party, so much so that Congress has practically abandoned them. Similarly, Subhas Chandra Bose and B R Ambedkar have been suitably iconised within the BJP’s political narrative irrespective of their political beliefs.
At the regional level, the BJP has successfully appropriated the tribal icon Birsa Munda and the Ahom army general Lachit Borphukan and politically sanctified their exalted status. In Uttar Pradesh, Sant Ravidas and Raja Suheldev are similarly iconised to assimilate social sections like the Scheduled Castes and OBCs within the BJP’s fold. In the south, Sant Thiruvalluvar and Bhagwan Basavanna have been included in the BJP’s pantheon for its pan-India expansion.
Much like Congress in the pre-Independence period and even during the initial years of the Nehru era, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh — and its successor, the BJP — built its organisational structure brick by brick. It fought for every inch of political space across India. Without losing its ideological moorings, the party shunned stereotypes and maintained remarkable flexibility in its pragmatic politics. How Narendra Modi Transformed the Party, the BJP came across as a party that innovated new methods of political mobilisation, co-option and expansion of the organisation. That seems to be the reason the BJP has acquired the pole position ,quite akin to what Congress had in the 1950s.
A glimpse of that predilection for innovative techniques was visible when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the gathering at the party office after the victory in the Delhi assembly elections. He exhorted over one lakh youth to come forward and join politics to save the country from the politics of dhoortata and murkhata (cunning and foolishness). Rhetoric apart, this exhortation is extraordinary in the sense that it conjured up a dream for the youth to be a part of politics for the cause of nation-building. Despite the victory, the party is not smug; it is keen to set an agenda to channel the youth’s energy.
If one goes back in time, AAP had tapped into the energies of the youth and the restive middle class of the capital to emerge as a viable political option against conventional politics. Driven by a motley group of social activists, it lacked a cohesive political agenda and rose to power by largely mimicking the agitational politics of the past. However, in India’s political history, the evolution of AAP is bound to be a curious case study. That it captured people’s imagination for over a decade and claimed a significant political space is more a reflection of the conventional polity ceding ground to the deviant. AAP’s chief failure was in building a robust party organisation. In politics, there are bound to be ups and downs, but a party can regain the lost ground if it has a strong organisational back-up. In the Delhi elections, the BJP has proved this.
The Union government and the BJP mounted a scathing attack on the Congress and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who is currently on a U.S. visit, accusing him of joining hands with anti-India forces abroad, making anti-national remarks on foreign platforms, and supporting anti-reservation agenda.
Through a post on X, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that standing with forces that conspired to divide the country and making anti-national statements had become a “habit” for Mr. Gandhi and his party. “Whether it is supporting the JKNC’s anti-national and anti-reservation agenda in J&K or making anti-India statements on foreign platforms, Rahul Gandhi has always threatened the nation’s security and hurt sentiments,” he said.
Unfortunately, the above sentiments are deeply inculcated in the minds of the majority of Indians paving the way for a strong TINA factor for BJP.
