The ripple effect of the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) defeat in the Maharashtra assembly elections is now being felt by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc. The first sign of it was seen at a meeting of the bloc called by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, which the Trinamool Congress (TMC) did not attend.
The TMC said its leaders were busy at their national executive meeting in Kolkata. But the TMC was aware of the first day of parliament and hence their absence was glaring.
A top TMC leader told News18: “The Trinamool convincingly won all six assembly seats that went for bypolls. Other than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), we were also facing two INDIA bloc parties, Congress and CPM, who put up candidates in every seat. We do not have an electoral alliance with any party in the bloc, so this is not a question we need to answer."
But matters took a serious turn, when TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee said that TMC chief Mamata Banerjee should be made the leader of the INDIA bloc.
THE THREE KEY MISTAKES
What is the anger about? What has gone wrong? What are the main mistakes made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi which allies feel had an impact on the bloc?
News18 breaks it down.
Veer Savarkar and Gandhi’s attacks on him: This is something both Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, who heads a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction, had a problem with. They now feel this hurt them in the polls and also helped the BJP with its agenda of “batoge toh katoge". But they say Gandhi did not pay heed and went on about it, despite a warning that it would hurt.
Caste survey: Many among the allies felt that the Congress was unable to counter the narrative by the BJP that if the Congress came to power it would end reservation. The fire of this narrative would singe allies namely the TMC, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ahead of other state polls .
Attack on PM as being involved in crony capitalism: This, many allies felt, would just not work. They had asked Gandhi not to push this narrative, but he did not pay heed.
In fact, sources say that some within Gandhi’s group, too, had advised him against the “Constitution in danger" narrative. But Gandhi refused to give up, treating it as a core issue.
It is this, what many call “stubbornness", that has now hurt the allies.
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