The distance of DMK (DMK) from India Bloc will cost this alliance heavily, because DMK may have lost in the 2026 assembly elections but its ground has not shifted. There is every possibility that he will contest against TVK in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, national parties still do not have any penetration in Tamil Nadu. Secondly, having been in power for the last 59 years, the roots of Dravidian parties here are very deep. People may have elected TVK in the Assembly in the name of Tamil identity, but the issues in Lok Sabha are different and Thalapathy Vijay is still a new player in this matter.
When the India Bloc was formed on July 10, 2023, its strong faces were Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, MK Stalin and Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party, but within three years there has been so much disintegration that all these faces of the India Bloc are either missing or badly tarnished.
Apart from SP, who is the big party?
But today, even though India Bloc claims that 25 political parties participated in its meeting held on Monday, Mallikarjun Kharge is silent on which powerful party came among them. Only Akhilesh Yadav can be considered a powerful leader, because he has 37 members in the Lok Sabha, which is just after BJP and Congress in the count.
Mamata Banerjee definitely reached this meeting with her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, but today her party TMC is badly disintegrated. Of their 28 Lok Sabha members, 20 are eager to join the BJP alliance and today their party’s Rajya Sabha member Sukhendu Shekhar Roy has resigned from the party. DMK, which has 22 members in the Lok Sabha, has formally broken ties with the India Bloc. None of their leaders were present in this meeting. Arvind Kejriwal also stayed away from this meeting. He too is no longer associated with the India Block.
the cracks have widened
It is a matter of relief for Congress that Akhilesh Yadav from SP, Tejashwi Yadav from Rashtriya Janata Dal and Manoj Kumar Jha were present in this meeting. Sanjay Raut came from Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray faction but Uddhav Thackeray himself joined this meeting virtually. Supriya Sule came from Sharad Pawar faction and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah from National Conference also attended the meeting. Apart from this, Mehbooba Mufti also arrived.
CPM came to the meeting with bitterness in its heart and also taunted that in the Kerala Assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi had alleged cordial relations between CPM and Sangh. Overall, this alliance is now limited to Congress only, because SP’s Akhilesh Yadav’s target is Uttar Pradesh. India Bloc may be happy that it has brought socialists and communists on one platform, but the cracks are so deep that nothing can be said right now.
Congress is not worried about assembly elections
Congress was seen in great enthusiasm in the meeting held at the Constitution Club Hall in New Delhi on Monday. Sonia Gandhi was present, National President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi were also present, but Congress could not decide on any major strategy for the 2029 fight. The biggest thing is that there are elections for Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa in March 2027 and then Himachal Assembly elections in November and Gujarat Assembly elections by December 2027. The most important among these is Uttar Pradesh, where there are 403 assembly seats and 80 Lok Sabha seats. Of these, Congress Party is in power in Himachal, Aam Aadmi Party is in power in Punjab and BJP is in control in the rest. Therefore the coming year is very important. In such a situation, it is natural to raise the question that what is the strategy of Congress for the coming elections? Because she will decide the agenda.
TVK also stayed away from the meeting
The most important thing is that among these 23 parties, TVK remained absent from this meeting, whereas in Tamil Nadu, when Thalapathy Vijay needed 12 MLAs to form the government, Congress was the first to create a rift in the DMK alliance and all five of its MLAs came in support of Thalapathy Vijay. He did not even talk to DMK and broke the alliance on his own. In such a situation, DMK’s displeasure is natural, but Thalapathy Vijay’s TVK not attending the India Block meeting is shocking, whereas Thalapathy Vijay gave Rajya Sabha seat to Congress in Tamil Nadu despite having five MLAs. When Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge was asked about this, he gave a vague answer that only those parties were called which have representatives in the Parliament, so was this meeting called for 2029?
Concrete issues did not come up in the meeting
If so, then it is a big mistake of Congress, because 2029 is still far away. First of all, work should be done on the strategy for the assembly elections of 2027 and 2028. Only after this the strategy for Lok Sabha elections should be decided. Even so, many of the 23 parties that attended this meeting do not have MPs. Opposition unity means uniting all those who have a base. In this meeting, many parties do not even have the base to win any election, but when they were called, TVK’s non-appearance raises suspicion.
This was the seventh meeting of India Block, but Congress could not put forward any concrete issue in it also. Mallikarjun Kharge said that this alliance considers the irregularities in NEET and CBSE as a betrayal of the students. Our demand is that the Education Minister should resign immediately, but when the Cockroach Party demonstrated on Saturday, the same Congress was condemning it.
Why should the cockroach distance itself from the Janata Party?
Congress should first make it clear which issues it should raise to get power in future! She is saying that India Block will write a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to maintain fairness in SIR and elections. Demanded to call an all-party meeting regarding inflation, unemployment and deteriorating economy. It also said that all the parties of India Block will now meet every two months. The next meeting has been called on 8th August in Hyderabad. Every morning during the monsoon session of Parliament, the opposition will meet together to decide the agenda. The country’s largest opposition alliance did not raise any questions face to face with the public. The question is that today when the public is suffering in every way. When the future of the youth is at stake, what concrete thing did India Block say? Is just the resignation of the Education Minister the solution to the problem? And if so, then Cockroach Janata Party should be supported.
Congress should look after itself first
The truth is that Congress, being the largest party in the India block, lacks thinking. National President Mallikarjun Kharge is now very old, yet Congress is eager to send him to Rajya Sabha. The backward people, Dalits and Muslims whom she talks about bringing forward, she backs out when the results are in her favor. It has governments in Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Himachal. But Congress could not elect any backward, Dalit or Muslim chief minister from any of these. It can be said that it got great success in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, but was that success of Congress? It got all the seats in Uttar Pradesh due to Akhilesh Yadav’s equation, otherwise in 2019 it had to be satisfied with only one seat and in the 2022 assembly elections, Congress got only two seats. Therefore, it would be better for Congress to search its conscience first.
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