How Chidambaram's praise for BJP shows INDIA bloc is still a work in progress

Former home minister and senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram ignited a storm of speculations after he praised the ruling dispensation calling it a “formidable machinery” and at the same time pointing toward the weak functioning of the Opposition and framing it as frayed.

 

The row began on Thursday at the launch of a book named 'Contesting Democratic Deficit', co-authored by the Congress's Salman Khurshid, when Chidambaram confessed uncertainty over the INDIA bloc. "The future is not so bright as Mr Mrityunjay Singh Yadav (the second co-author) says. He seems to feel that the INDIA alliance is still intact. I am not sure. Maybe Salman can answer... because he was part of the negotiating team of the INDIA alliance," Chidambaram said Thursday.

 

The comment possibly suggests the lack of communication between the alliance partners, which has led to a silent disconnect between the opposition parties that had come together before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to defeat the gigantic BJP. 

 

According to sources within the grand old party, there has been no collective activity planned by the alliance partners after the general elections. This had left each for his own in their regional spaces with Congress charting its own independent course. 

 

“It was the responsibility of Congress to take along everyone,” political analyst Aditya Rathi says, “but for now it seems like there is no communication at the national level to make a roadmap against the BJP.”

 

"If the INDIA alliance is totally intact... I would be very, very happy, but it seems frail. It can be put together. There is still time. There are still events which will unfold,” Chidambaram said at the event.

 

The warning comes months before a series of critical assembly elections that could either keep up the BJP’s momentum and help pursue its ambitions without much struggle or reposition the opposition camp in the national landscape. Currently, the two active parties of the INDIA bloc working in coordination in Bihar seem to be the only silver lining for the future of the bloc. Experts believe that much of the future of the alliance with depend on the performance of the collective results of the RJD and Congress in Bihar.

India