Can someone oblige opposition and help it bring 'changes' if Congress and other regional parties simply keep cursing or yelling Darkness and perceived Failures of the Modi Govt ?
Numerous questions can be asked. Whether 2026 will also be a basically a BJP show as two previous years 2025 and 2024 have been ?
Despite a minor setback as Lok Sabha tally of BJP declined in 2024 - the Lotus party has won elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi and Bihar.
In Maharashtra and Bihar - India's principal opposition party Congress could win only six states in both the states. And it in Delhi - it scored a zero yet again.
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| Blogger in Old Parliament building |
In 2026 - polls are due in Assam and Kerala (also). In these two states - Congress has the prospects of winning and if such a thing happens -- glorifying articles and commentaries would flow in from western media, India's Sickular media and commentators. In fact, in Kerala; the Congress ideally should have come to power in 2021. So in other words; a win in the southern state is overdue.
In two other states - that is West Bengal and Tamil Nadu; the Congress is not in race. The DMK has a better prospect of winning but in West Bengal; the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress would face a tough competition from the BJP.
The Lotus party - of course - faces immense pressure to deliver in Assam (where it is in power) and also in West Bengal because they have raised the 'higher expectations; scales.
For Congress and other opposition parties -- there are certain drawbacks.
To start with, in the name of alternatives what can they promise to the electorate ? -
The response would be --- pre-2014 set up at its best. That is the Status quo ante. As soon as this comes to mind - we know how things started getting derailed for Congress right from 2010.
Multiple corruption scandals hit parties such as Trinamool Congress, DMK and the Congress. The RJD in Bihar - once ruled by 'corrupt' leader Lalu Prasad and also his wife at a later stage -- has been shown the door in Bihar in the Nov 2025 polls.
Thus we find the one-party and the NDA led by it dominating the political scenario for sometime to come.
** The Hindutva is not only a successful vote-garner for the BJP. It is something much bigger than the Lotus party itself. Modi's frequently made statements that "Do not be apologetic about Hindutva" ... is something the people seemed to have endorsed at least when they go to the booths to make use of the EVMs.
** In fact today; not many regional parties have problems with soft-Hindutva. In contrast what was the situation once; the BJP would be a powerful force seeking to take away the battle to enemy camps in West Bengal and possibly also in Assam.
*** The Hindutva and two of its missions - abrogation of Art 370 and the Ram temple at Ayodhya -- are actually seen by many Indian voters as part of the 'achhey din package' that was promised by Narendra Modi in 2014 elections.
*** Politics has shifted and changed a lot organically. There was a sort of 'divinity; associated with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.
People often thought the opposition parties and especially the Congress do not know -- how to behave when they are in opposition.
See how things turned out for opposition parties including the likes of Congress, Shiv Sena, NCP and Trinamool Congress.
The Shiv Sena and the NCP split in Maharashtra.
For Congress; Rahul resigned in 2019 as AICC chief after losing to PM Modi practically twice.
But the Negru-Gandhi family’s influence remains quite strong. But the 'family' has made very little effort to find a long-term successor who is not within their dynastic ranks.
In 2023; Congress voted in a new president, Mallikarjan Kharge. he is 82. "For many within its ranks, Congress without the Gandhis still seems unfathomable and Rahul Gandhi remains the recognisable face of the party," goes an article in 'The Guardian'.
The survival for opposition parties may depend much less on artificial unity of the parties in INDI-alliance and more on rebuilding credibility.
Much of the blame for Congress’s entrenched failures over the years has been laid at his feet and not without reasons. Rahul is accused of being a weak leader who did not reform the party’s undemocratic structure deliberately.
When Shashi Tharoor - a popular leader among Educated and middleclass wanted to become AICC president; the family imposed 80 plus Malikarjun Kharge. Worse, Kharge was left as a rubber stamp president.
In other parties; say for example - Home Minister Amit Shah mocked at Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on the floor of Lok Sabha that he (Yadav) could remain party chief for the next 25 years.
M K Stalin has named his son as the state deputy chief minister; and in Trinamool Congress; it is Mamata's nephew Abhishek Banerjee who is often more powerful than Mamata herself.
Next comes; the opposition's inability to offer anything new. The opposition and the Congress in the process are also judged or weighted by their sins of the past.
Dr Manmohan Singh Govt was soaked in corruption and the family remote controlled the Prime Minister - so goes a rather convincing conviction. In the last 11 years; the opposition has not able to break or come out of this image-trap.
The name of opposition alliance UPA was replaced but do such things really help bring any substantial change. Voters are not kids of nursery classes. The Manmohan Singh era also faced the charged of 'Policy paralysis' whereas the Modi regime was seen as a doer.
Moreover, the Prime Minister Modi has made it seen that his Govt is seen as a performing one - right from Swacch Abhiyan to surgical strikes and from Make in India to building a highly modern airport in Guwahati.
The abrogation of Art 370 that affected functional autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state and construction of a grand Ram temple at Ayodhya on a plot of land where once stood the Babri mosque actually symbilise a strong political and cultural transformation India has undergone since the ouster of the UPA.
This transformation has pitchforked a new politics wherein Indians are more often provincial, pro-Hindi but strong pro-Hindu.
The opposition parties are essentially taken as pro-Muslim or even pro-Christians.
Lastly the image factor. Modi is in power as PM and prior to that as the chief minister since 2001. The charge of corruption has not struck him despite Rahul foolishly campaigned - 'Chowkidar chor hae'. Now he says Vote-chori.
In contrast; Akhilesh Yadav ran a virtual gooda raj of Yadav domination in UP. Mamata's rule is syndicate raj and law and order failures. DMK runs a family business and in Karnataka the Congress leaders have more of internal squabbling to talk before media than government works.
For his part; Rahul himself does not have a good example to make. He has not run anything efficiently in his career. There is nothing new in his programmes and if he ran Congress party ... there have been more of negativity, largescale desertion and as many as 90 electoral defeats.
Do you need to blame the voters and Vote-chori after all these ?
ends
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