Currently the Congress is involved in tough negotiations with the DMK in Tamil Nadu, which is trying to continue with what certainly is not a respectable alliance. The DMK wants an alliance for the ensuing Assembly elections, but without letting the Congress be a part of the government in case the alliance wins, like the existing arrangement. The Congress, despite having 18 MLAs in the outgoing Assembly, did not have any minister there even though it fought the 2021 elections in alliance. The Tamil Nadu Congress leadership wants a share in the power and rightly so. But the high command does not want to change the arrangement.
The Congress has tried everything during the last 11 years to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre and in states. Barring a few exceptions, it has always failed to succeed. It has, however, managed to defeat the BJP mainly on its own whether in Karnataka, Telangana or Himachal Pradesh. In Jharkhand, it has an alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which returned to power in the 2024 Assembly elections.
It should serve as a lesson for the Congress that alliances do not necessarily guarantee and gift victories. Maharashtra and Bihar are examples. In Haryana where it went on its own, the party was within striking distance, although it failed in the last lap due to severe factionalism. The Congress has really not benefited much from striking alliances. Rather, it has paid a heavy price in the desperate bid to keep the BJP away from power.
The Congress has made some major ideological compromises with parties like the DMK in Tamil Nadu, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. In Bihar it has had an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal for a long time. Although in Uttar Pradesh the party’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party did help it win some Parliamentary seats from the state, it remains to be seen how far the alliance can succeed in the Assembly elections next year.
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Of all these, three alliances that the Congress went for were quite surprising and showed the party at its weakest. The party aligned with the DMK in Tamil Nadu and also at the Centre despite the DMK’s reported association with the LTTE, which killed Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide bomb attack in 1991. The Congress aligned with the DMK in 2004 for forming the government at the Centre. Just seven years before that the Congress had made the I.K. Gujral government fall by putting a condition that it drop the DMK ministers and dismiss the DMK government in Tamil Nadu. This was after the Jain Commission, which was probing Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, revealed the links between the DMK and the LTTE. But this did not stop the Congress from seeking the DMK’s support in 2004 to form the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre.
The alliance continues and not without a lot of compromises by the Congress. The DMK does take Congress’ support but is not ready to offer a few ministerial berths to the Congress.
The Congress high command appears to be happy with the existing arrangement and has warned the state leadership not to comment on the alliance. This means that while there will be an alliance and even in case it wins, the Congress will not be the part of the government. This is not a respectable but a humiliating alliance.
Another ideological compromise that the Congress made was when it aligned with the Nationalist Congress Party led by Sharad Pawar. The NCP was formed by Pawar, along with late PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar, after they rebelled against Sonia Gandhi, heading the Congress despite being born in Italy. The NCP was founded on the plank of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origins only. Both the parties buried the hatchet and came together to be part of the UPA-I government. The alliance worked well in Maharashtra also where it won a few Assembly elections by defeating the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance.
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The most shocking compromise that the Congress made was to align with the Shiv Sena to form the government in Maharashtra in 2019. The Congress’ main criticism against the BJP is on the issue of “secularism”. Rahul Gandhi and other leaders keep on accusing the BJP of, what they call, trying to divide people by practicing communal politics. The Congress forgot everything about “secularism and communalism” when it formed the government along with the Shiv Sena with its chief Uddhav Thackeray becoming the Chief Minister.
Although the party fared better in the 2024 General Elections winning 13 of the 30 seats the alliance won together of the total 48, it could not repeat the performance in the subsequent Assembly elections held a few months later. Rahul Gandhi, however, has rejected the results alleging that the BJP had manipulated the voter list.
The Congress will need to do a serious rethinking about the choice and type of alliances it should go for. Compromising the basic principles and ideology may provide the party short-term gains, but in the long run it stands to lose. The Congress will need to take a bold leap forward and align only on mutually respectful terms and not the ones like with the DMK in Tamil Nadu. Why should the party go for alliance when the partner shuts its doors on it joining the government well in advance? The Congress has nothing to lose in Tamil Nadu. Neither it has many stakes, nor does it need to keep BJP out of power there, the main reason that it aligns with various parties at any cost.
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