After poll debacle, India's opposition Congress seeks alliance meeting

THE Indian National Congress, India's major opposition party that has dominated the country's politics for most period after Independence in 1947, has gone into a huddle with other opposition parties that are part of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) after facing debacle in three state elections.

According to reports, the Congress called for the next meeting of INDIA on Wednesday (6) as its chief Mallikarjun Kharge dialled leaders from other parties of the bloc.

The Congress, also called India's Grand Old Party, lost Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, states that it ruled over the last five years, to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of prime minister Narendra Modi and failed to capitalise on an anti-incumbency mood in the central state of Madhya Pradesh which is ruled by the BJP.

Read: KCR, the man who projected himself as an alternative to Modi, loses own state elections

Results of elections in four states came out on Sunday (3). The Congress, however, had a consolation prize in winning the southern state of Telangana which was ruled by regional party Bharat Rashtra Samithi.

Read: Modi's BJP sweeps three Indian states ahead of 2024 general polls

The INDIA coalition was formed earlier this year to challenge Modi's BJP and its National Democratic Alliance in next year's general elections. The alliance has had key meetings and vowed to defeat the saffron party in 2024 and deny Modi his third consecutive mandate.

Meanwhile, Nikhil Mandal, a leader of the Janata Dal (United), the ruling party of the eastern state of Bihar and a part of INDIA said in a post on X that the party's chief Nitish Kumar should lead the INDIA alliance.

According to him, the Congress remained preoccupied with the elections in five states and ignored the alliance, but they did not perform well either. He added that Nitish Kumar was the architect of the alliance and could steer the ship through the challenges.