INDIA alliance might yet prevail and defeat BJP in elections: Mani Shankar Aiyar

New Delhi, Sep 10 (PTI) Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has asserted that the INDIA bloc has the potential to defeat the BJP in elections, provided it unites and coordinates effectively, and it can help halt the "furious decline" of democracy in the country.

Speaking at the Jawahar Bhawan on Tuesday during the launch of senior journalist and writer Prem Shankar Jha's latest book, "The Dismantling of India's Democracy 1947 to 2025", Aiyar emphasised that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has secured only about "one-third" of the total votes cast in the last three general elections held in 2014, 2019 and 2024.

"In other words, about two-thirds of Indians have never voted for the BJP, which in turn means that at least half of all Hindus have consistently rejected any equivalence between the political posture of Hindutva and Hinduism as a religion or a way of life. So the INDIA alliance might yet prevail," the former Union minister said.

The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), formally announced in 2023 ahead of last year's Lok Sabha polls, is a coalition of opposition parties formed to challenge the ruling BJP by presenting a united front.

Aiyar, however, stressed that the current situation can be retrieved politically only if the INDIA alliance manages to "get its act together" -- something he noted shows mixed signs of both possibility and uncertainty.

"There are signs that perhaps it could. But there are other signs that internal jockeying may result in the non-BJP vote remaining fractionated, as it has been three times over," the diplomat-turned-politician added.

The Congress leader said he believes that if pursued properly by the INDIA bloc, an electoral strategy could lead to the defeat of the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a few years or, possibly, even sooner.

The 84-year-old leader claimed that "fissures are appearing within the ranks" of the "saffron brotherhood".

"And I think we should take advantage of that.... I think pure politics at the polls can easily stop this furious decline in democracy that we are witnessing and through which we are currently living," he said.

"The Dismantling of India's Democracy 1947 to 2025", published by Speaking Tiger Books, is "both a lament and a call to action". It traces how the country's democracy "has been steadily hollowed out since Independence -- slowly at first, and since 2014, with determined ferocity". PTI MG RC