After Haryana debacle, emboldened allies call Congress arrogant, overconfident

The defeat of the Congress party in the Haryana Assembly elections has brought out in the open the grudge of INDIA bloc’s smaller partners against the grand old party for its alleged heavy-handed approach during seat-sharing talks with them.

The AAP — which is also a part of the INDIA bloc nationally — wanted to contest Haryana elections after striking an alliance with the Congress. Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi had also insisted on the same but the state leadership of the party couldn’t reach a seat-sharing agreement.

Following the Congress party’s defeat, AAP on Wednesday said it would go solo in Delhi — where elections are due by February next year — and confront the “overconfident” Congress and “arrogant” BJP. “We will not have an alliance with the Congress in Delhi. It didn’t accommodate the SP and AAP in Haryana despite being given more seats than it deserves in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi during the Lok Sabha polls,” AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar told a news agency.

Without naming the Congress, TMC MP Saket Gokhale wrote on X: “Arrogance, entitlement and looking down on regional parties is a recipe for disaster.”

The TMC and Congress failed to reach a seat-sharing formula in West Bengal for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, prompting the TMC to contest all 42 seats in the state on its own. The TMC won 29 seats, while the Congress could win only one of the 12 seats it contested in alliance with the CPM in the eastern state.

In UP, the Samajwadi Party, which is at loggerheads with the Congress over seat-sharing for the bypolls that are due in the state for 10 seats, went ahead with its bypoll list and declared the first list of six candidates. The Congress wanted to contest at least five seats in the bypolls.

In J&K, where the National Conference-Congress combine secured a simple majority, would-be Chief Minister and NC vice-chief Omar Abdullah said he hoped that the Congress would analyse the reason for its defeat in Haryana and put in place corrective measures in time for the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, slated to be held later this year.

In J&K, the Congress could win only six of the 38 seats it contested — a performance that even Congress leaders admit as being “far from good”. In Maharashtra — where the Congress will contest Assembly poll with Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar) — the alliance partners are having difficulty reaching a consensus over eight seats in Mumbai and six in the Vidarbha region.

An editorial in ‘Saamana’, the mouthpiece of Shiv Sena (UB T) group, today criticised Congress for its failure to accommodate alliance partners such as the AAP, and for not addressing the “disobedience of local leaders” in Haryana. The piece also expressed frustration over Congress’ tendency to “turn a winning inning into a defeat”.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said had the “overconfident” Congress accommodated the SP and AAP in Haryana, the result would have been different.