Rahul Gandhi has sought to recast the INDIA bloc’s post-2024 strategy as a campaign of sustained resistance, telling opposition partners that unity, not conventional electoral arithmetic, will determine whether they can challenge the BJP-led ruling coalition before the 2029 Lok Sabha contest.
The Congress leader’s remarks, delivered at the alliance meeting in New Delhi on June 8 and circulated again on Saturday with a Hindi version for colleagues, placed him at the centre of a renewed debate over the opposition’s cohesion. Gandhi argued that the bloc had not lost the 2024 election in political terms and claimed that the next national election was already winnable if partners avoided public discord and confronted what he described as institutional capture by the BJP and RSS.
The intervention came at a sensitive point for the alliance. The June 8 meeting at the Constitution Club brought together Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, Supriya Sule, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti and leaders from Left parties, while Uddhav Thackeray joined virtually. The DMK stayed away and the AAP has distanced itself from the grouping, sharpening questions over whether the bloc can operate as a national front or only as a loose parliamentary arrangement.
Gandhi’s central message was that opposition parties should stop treating 2029 as a routine contest. He told allies that their immediate task was to resist on public issues such as exam irregularities, electoral rolls, the Constitution, social justice, environmental questions and institutional independence. His formulation was also an attempt to answer allies who have pressed the Congress to be more accommodating towards regional parties and less prone to state-level attacks that complicate national cooperation.
The speech acknowledged friction without retreating from Congress’s claim to a pivotal role. Gandhi said his party would absorb criticism if that helped keep the grouping together. He also framed Congress as a resistance movement rather than an ordinary electoral machine, invoking its historical roots and arguing that parties depending on a level institutional playing field would have to adapt to a changed political environment.
That message has not settled the bloc’s internal disputes. Gandhi’s comment that he could not “hug” former Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan because he had an ongoing political fight with him triggered strong criticism from the CPI. Vijayan said the issue was not a hug but Gandhi’s political approach, arguing that such remarks did not strengthen the INDIA alliance and could help the BJP. CPI general secretary M A Baby said the Congress should stop appearing to assist central agencies and the Modi government by demanding action against opposition leaders in Kerala.
Congress general secretary K C Venugopal hit back, saying criticism of Gandhi reflected the Left’s political insecurity and declining relevance. The exchange underlined a structural dilemma for the INDIA bloc: Congress and the Left must coordinate nationally while remaining direct rivals in Kerala. Similar tensions run through other states, where regional parties want Congress support against the BJP but resist its attempts to expand at their expense.
The 2024 Lok Sabha result continues to shape the argument. The BJP-led NDA won 293 seats in the 543-member House, while the BJP itself fell to 240, below the 272 mark required for a majority. The INDIA bloc won 234 seats, with Congress improving to 99 and returning to the post of Leader of the Opposition after a decade. Gandhi’s assertion that the opposition “won” 2024 is therefore less a statement of arithmetic than an attempt to frame the outcome as a political reversal for the BJP’s majority-era dominance.
The June 8 meeting produced decisions to coordinate during the Monsoon Session, write to the Chief Justice of India on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and alleged voter disenfranchisement, demand accountability over NEET and CBSE examination controversies, and meet every two months, with Hyderabad marked for the next session in August. The alliance also discussed unemployment, price rise, foreign policy, federalism and alleged misuse of investigative agencies.
