Opinion | INDIA Bloc's Vote of No Confidence For Congress

In mid-July last year, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge addressed a media conference after a two-day meeting of opposition parties concluding in Bengaluru, announcing the name of the new alliance. After months of aborted deliberations, it was finally named I.N.D.I.A., but the Congress President struggled to even pronounce its full name—Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.

The Congress also struggled to explain why it had discarded the UPA (United Progressive Alliance), chaired by Sonia Gandhi, and why it felt the need to erase its own legacy. The question of who would lead the INDIA bloc, and whether there should be a convenor of the alliance, remained unresolved.Congress's dismal performance in the Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and Maharashtra assembly elections has made its claim to lead the INDIA bloc precarious. The leadership question has resurfaced to haunt both the Congress and the opposition coalition. Congress's de facto leader, Rahul Gandhi, has been fixated on a single issue, encouraging his MPs to disrupt both Houses of Parliament. The attempts at photo-ops every day with specially printed t-shirts, jackets, masks, and photos have further alienated some of the alliance's key partners—Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC), Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP), and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). And the list keeps growing.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) with 37 MPs and the TMC with 28 are two of the largest parties of the INDIA bloc. Sharad Pawar's NCP, with eight MPs, is also unhappy with the Congress's persistent negativity. Barely six months after the parliamentary election results were declared, there are already visible signs that the Congress is becoming isolated and that the INDIA bloc is starting to fall apart.