INDIA bloc 'frayed', says Chidambaram, calls for coordination

NEW DELHI: Congress veteran P Chidambaram has expressed concern that opposition INDIA bloc was no longer intact while stressing that an alliance was required to take on the ‘formidable’ BJP machinery that “controls from Election Commission to the lowest police station” — echoing concerns among many players in the anti-BJP grouping amid growing dissonance and lack of active coordination.

“If INDIA bloc is totally intact, I am very, very happy. But it shows at the seams that it is frayed. It can be put together, there is still time,” Chidambaram said at a function to release a book on 2024 elections , ‘Contesting Democratic Deficit’, by Congress’ Salman Khurshid and Mrityunjay Yadav.

A gleeful BJP latched on to the comments to state that successive defeats had left Congress scarred. “Chidambaram used the word ‘formidable’ six times to describe BJP and its election machinery in a speech that lasted less than three minutes. Successive defeats have left Congress scarred, much like Pakistan after its bases were destroyed by the IAF,” BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya posted on X.

Chidambaram’s remarks struck a chord with many politicians who have raised alarm that INDIA bloc has stopped having meetings and players like NCP of Sharad Pawar are seen to be toying with options outside. But the widespread lament in the bloc may not yield much result as electoral compulsions of partners are, in any case, likely to keep them away for many months. Four key allies — TMC, Congress, AAP and the Left parties — will be taking on each other in West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab in 2025 and 2026, and party leaders are loath to be seen together.

That is the reason, sources said, the alliance partners have joined hands for coordination in Parliament but have not held meetings outside in recent months. In the most recent instance, Pawar has expressed disagreement with Congress’s demand for a special session of Parliament to discuss Operation Sindoor. TMC has not supported it either. However, Congress argues that alliances in key states are intact, citing examples of Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala, UP, J&K, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, which retains the INDIA flavour to a large extent.

But Chidambaram’s alarm appeared to emphasise that the parties could not just cobble an alliance during LS polls and needed to strengthen it during the interim period. “In my reading of history, there has been no political party that has been so formidably organised as BJP. In every department, it is formidable. It’s not another political party. It’s a machine behind which is another machine. And, the two machines control all of the machinery of India — from ECI to the lowest police station in India. They are able to control and sometimes capture these institutions,” he said. “We are still an electoral democracy . We are not a full-fledged democracy no more, we are an electoral democracy,” he added.