Are INDI allies unwilling to support Congress on Rahul's 'insult'?

New Delhi: All is not seemingly well within the INDI alliance. The ease with which the Bharatiya Janata Party has labelled the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi as anti-national is startling. 

The BJP termed Rahul a traitor and in collusion with forces trying to break India without any resistance from the INDI alliance. This also reveals that there is a complete lack of coordination amongst opposition allies. 

The BJP had alleged that a George Soros-linked foundation, a global news portal, and senior Congress leader Rahul were part of a conspiracy to destabilise India, and accused Rahul of being a “traitor of the highest order”.

This attack met with muted response despite the fact that the Congress currently has 102 members in Lok Sabha and the Opposition has 249 MPs in the lower house of Parliament. 

Only the Congress MPs were seen taking up the matter today in Parliament, while INDI alliance members, notably Samajwadi Party and Trinamool Congress, remained distant on the issue. 

Sources stated that the relationship between the Congress and its important INDI bloc partner Samajwadi Party has been strained over the past few weeks. The attempts by the Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, to visit violence-affected Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh are viewed by the SP as grand old party's attempt to compete with it for the votes of the minority Muslim community.

It is believed that it is the reason for SP leadership's silence on the latest attack by the BJP on Rahul. Interestingly, The SP has stayed away from the INDI bloc protests on the Adani issue outside the Parliament repeatedly, amid indications that uneasiness has crept into its relationship with the Congress.

SP chief and its Lok Sabha floor leader Akhilesh Yadav has not attended any INDI bloc floor leaders’ meeting during the ongoing winter session of Parliament. 

Another INDI bloc ally, Trinamool Congress, has already distanced itself from the Adani-centric strategy led by the Congress and has been not attending floor leaders’ meetings, while also skipping the protests on the issue. 

The INDI bloc partners believe that the Congress also needs to take top leadership of other opposition parties into confidence whenever floor strategy is being planned. 

"Many times junior partners of INDI bloc are only made aware of the floor strategy when the proceedings of Parliament begin, which is a very sad situation for long term well being of the alliance," sources said. 

After a major setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has almost regained its composure after securing wins in Haryana and Maharashtra Assembly polls. And this is certainly not the way for sure in which the opposition should behave. The onus is on the Congress to take its allies along in a coordinated way on all major issues.