There are many subtexts underpinning the discussions — negotiations if you will — to operationalise INDIA, the Opposition front, in the run-up to the general elections. Given that the main premise of the alliance is to put up a single Opposition candidate against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one of the biggest sticking points is seat-sharing. This is not a trivial issue; the seats any party concedes to the united alliance will be seats where its own party members will be unable to contest. This has implications for intra-party dynamics and party organisation. The share of seats is also related to the relative strength of the party in post-poll negotiations. It is thus natural that each party would like to maximise its own share of contested seats. But these considerations may seem petty juxtaposed with the larger rubric of ‘saving democracy’ under which the INDIA alliance was stitched together. Thus, the negotiations are likely to pivot around the ‘winnability’ of the parties in question vis-à-vis the BJP.
Regional parties
The common political trope in this context is that regional parties are better able to repulse the challenges by the BJP than the Congress. Three allegedly empirical facts support this contention: first, regional parties bested the BJP in high-profile State elections; second, the relative strike rates of the Congress and regional parties in alliance vis-à-vis the BJP; and third, Congress’ middling performance in direct contests with the BJP. This perception has been buttressed by the recent Assembly elections where the Congress lost all the three States where it fought in a bipolar contest with the BJP.
