Cong must support alliance between regional parties to unseat Modi in 2019

Despite the CWC projecting Rahul as the PM candidate for the 2019 general elections, leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik and Mayawati might have to be accommodated to defeat the NDA.

Although the recently-constituted Congress Working Committee (CWC) anointed Rahul Gandhi as its prime ministerial candidate in its very first meeting, senior party leaders, including Gandhi himself, have subsequently indicated that forging alliances with like-minded parties to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party from coming back to power would be the Congress’s top priority. In case of a hung Lok Sabha in 2019, the Congress has said that it is open to supporting any non-BJP/RSS backed leader for the top position.

2019’s general elections are still a few months away. More immediately knocking on the Congress party’s doors are the crucial assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, scheduled later this year. Only when it is able to wrest at least two of these states from the BJP, can it think of emerging as the pivot around a larger coalition to take on the formidable Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Despite giving consistent signals that the party may be on an upward swing, it cannot be debated that the grand old party is currently facing one of its worst crises and is short of both funds and a determined workforce. Naturally, the Congress is hedging bets on its performance in the upcoming assembly elections to pull its weight as a national party with other anti-BJP political players. At the same time, it will have to work around the priorities of regional parties, which may be unwilling to let the Congress play big brother, irrespective of its showing in the assembly elections.

Given the current political landscape, the Congress is deeply aware of its strengths and limitations. In any scenario, forging alliances with non-BJP parties will be crucial for the depleted Congress to make a mark in the general elections.

That is why the ‘P. Chidambaram formula’, or what the former Union finance minister proposed in the CWC meeting, is being discussed in political circles. In his presentation at the CWC meeting, Chidambaram proposed that the Congress should work to secure anywhere between 140 and 150 seats in the 12 states where it is directly up against the BJP. In the remaining states, it should form pre- or post-poll alliances with regional parties to garner another 150 seats, which should be enough to form the government in 2019.

However, the problem with such a formula is that it is easier said than done. The former minister’s calculations can be contrasted with the fact that the Congress’s average seat tally was only a little more than 130 from 1996 to 2004, when the party was in a much better shape. While in 2009 it increased its tally largely due to its improved performance in Andhra Pradesh, it has since then been reduced to only 48 in the Lok Sabha.

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