India Bloc Like ‘Filtered Coffee’; A Congress Resurrection Is Not Out of the Question: Shatrughan Sinha

MP and senior TMC politician Shatrughan Sinha has referred to the opposition group India as “filtered coffee” and said it is gathering steam ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. He has also emphasized the need to not write out Congress, given its history of political comebacks.

The Asansol MP, while praising Congressman Rahul Gandhi for leading “krantikari (revolutionary) yatras” throughout the nation, said that TMC chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will be a “game-changer” after the results.

The actor-turned-politician called the electoral bond a “major scam and extortion racket” of the BJP in an interview with PTI, adding that the opposition parties would benefit from the seven-phase polls as they would reveal the saffron camp’s electoral bond extortion and blackmail scheme.

This election will see the defeat of the BJP. India has the backing of the people if the CBI, ED, and Income Tax endorse the NDA. Although many believe that India has no allies, the truth is that people are its greatest ally. He said that the opposition coalition is becoming more and more popular throughout the nation.

With “solid leaders” like Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and many more, he said, the INDIA coalition is like “filtered coffee.”

“I refer to this as filtered coffee since the India coalition includes a number of significant national leaders. He remarked that when other opposition leaders drank this filtered coffee after the elections, it would taste much better.

When asked why opposition groups like the TMC and AAP don’t want Congress to lead them, Sinha said that the party’s participation “is a must for any opposition alliance, just like any other opposition party.”

Since Congress is a national party, it is important to include them. It has a past and a history of reappearances. It had the largest seat share among opposition parties in 2019 as well, he said.

“Ground-level alliances were not possible in some states as it would lead to the opposition space going to the BJP,” Sinha added, referring to the INDIA alliance’s lack of success in areas like Punjab and Bengal despite the AAP and TMC being members of the opposition front nationally.

“Perhaps the official alliance is not present, but INDIA alliance leaders like Mamata Banerjee will win big in Bengal,” he said. Nonetheless, Sinha pointed out that the states’ absence from the opposition front does not imply that they “will not come together after elections.”

“Those who are competing alone or outside of the India bloc today do not necessarily indicate that they will not join the opposition front after the elections. The TMC MP said, “The opposition will unite after the elections to remove the BJP.”

Jesting at the BJP’s claim of independently gaining more than 370 seats and the NDA’s exceeding 400 seats, Sinha said, “Such claims reflect the frustration in the saffron party camp.”

The only way the BJP could get this number was via trickery. He said, “They won’t touch 150–175 seats if they engage in horse-trading, as they did to form governments in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Otherwise, they can manage something.”

In the most recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP secured 303 seats. “Electoral bond is a big scam and an extortion racket of the BJP by using the CBI and the ED to extort money by threatening raids and arrests,” he added, comparing the electoral bond to frosting on top for the opposition during the staggered election campaign. The company operating under the guise of contributions is now publicly visible.

Since these bonds were established in 2018, the BJP has gotten the most funding—Rs 6,986.5 crore—followed by the governing Trinamool Congress of West Bengal (Rs 1,397 crore), the Congress (Rs 1,334 crore), and the BRS (Rs 1,322 crore).

“You cannot compare the two, whether it is Congress, TMC, or any other opposition party; they have received money under the system but did not misuse central agencies,” he said when asked about opposition groups, including the TMC, obtaining funding via electoral bonds.

The opposition would have a chance to expose the BJP in front of the public throughout the roughly 2.5-month-long seven-phase elections, he added, making the electoral bond problem “icing on the cake.”

Recently, the Supreme Court struck down the electoral bond program for financing politics. As first stated by the finance minister in the Union Budget 2017–18, an electoral bond is a means of financing contributions to political parties. Rahul Gandhi was praised by Sinha for leading two yatras that traversed the whole nation.

“As a leader, Rahul Gandhi is capable. He is an established leader. However, I also think that our party’s leader will fundamentally alter the way the government is formed after the elections. However, the opposition parties will choose the prime minister after the elections, he said. Sinha was a prominent advocate for the saffron movement during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-L K Advani period, having joined the party in the early 1980s.

Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the two-term BJP MP from Patna Sahib subsequently left the party due to disagreements with the current leadership and joined the Congress.

In 2022, the Bollywood star from the 1970s and 1980s joined the TMC. He campaigned effectively in the West Bengali industrial town of Asansol for the by-election.

With a greater margin than the 2022 bypoll, Sinha, who has been renominated three times for the Asansol seat, was confident in keeping the seat.