The Breaks in South India’s Opposition Unity

After months of internal strife, the Congress party had its first split in 1969 in the Glass House of Lalbagh in Bengaluru. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 in the same city, the Congress is spearheading attempts to bring together the Opposition parties more than 50 years later in order to present a formidable front against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The second of these gatherings was held in Karnataka, where the Congress won the election two months before, and invited 26 opposition groups. But how can the alliance’s chemistry be determined when regional parties feel more threatened by the Congress than by the BJP and are battling among themselves to undermine the Congress?

Focus on the similarities, overlook the differences was essentially the guiding principle of the first Opposition unity conference, which was held in Patna. All three of the major parties from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana—Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS, formerly TRS)—showed the difficulties in forming such a unity despite their shared objective of building an opposition to the BJP by being conspicuously absent from the meeting.

Telugu state’s situation
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao revealed the new name of his political party, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), in December 2022 with considerable fanfare. Until that point, it was referred to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). The official entry of his party into national politics came with the renaming of TRS as BRS. KCR declared “Ab ki baar kisan sarkar (farmers’ government this time)” as his party’s catchphrase, which was uncannily similar to the BJP’s catchphrase “Ab ki baar, Modi sarkar” adopted during the 2014 general elections.

Over a year later, the KCR-led party said it would not work to bring the opposition together and would instead strike off on its own. According to party working president and minister KT Rama Rao, the BRS would instead concentrate on showcasing the “Telangana development model” to the nation.

KCR’s son Rama Rao, who is in charge of a number of significant positions in the Telangana administration, questioned the rationale of an oppositional coalition built around opposing a single figure, a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The country does not need such unity on the basis of blind hatred against one party or one man,” he said.

However, KCR had previously met with several leaders, including some of the chief ministers of other states, such as M K Stalin (Tamil Nadu), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), and Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi), in his attempt to form a non-BJP, non-Congress alliance. KCR claimed that both the national parties had failed to advance the nation. Even after the results of the Karnataka Assembly elections, KCR claimed that they represented a “rejection of the incumbent government” rather than a success for the Congress.

The swearing-in event for Bengaluru’s Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, which saw a show of force from notable opposition party leaders, was not attended by KCR since the Congress had not sent an invitation.

The state assembly elections that are slated to be place before December and in which the Congress and the BJP will both face off against the regional party are likely what motivated BRS to adopt this position. Meanwhile, the YSRCP and the TDP, who neither have shown a steadfast resistance to the BJP, compete with the Congress in Andhra Pradesh.

Kerala: CPIM vs. Congress
Another obstacle to the unity of the opposition is Kerala. The Left Democratic Front (LDF), which is headed by the CPI(M), faces the United Democratic Front (UDF), which is governed by the Congress. Pinarayi, whose CPI(M)-led LDF rules Kerala, has insisted that Congress is no longer able to manage the whole nation by itself. “For a very long period, the Congress presided over the nation alone. However, the Congress is different; they are less strong. The BJP is now entirely gone from South India. However, the administrations of Telangana, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala are not the Congress. After the win for the Congress in Karnataka, Pinarayi said, “Congress needs to face that fact.

The ongoing conflict between CPI(M) and Congress, the two major political parties in the state, serves as yet another reminder of the treacherous terrain the opposition will have to negotiate as it forges a unified front.

Following the opposition conference in Patna on June 23, the Congress attacked the CPI(M) when Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President K. Sudhakaran was detained by the state police’s crime branch in connection with a forgery case. The Vijayan government’s move was labeled a “political vendetta” by the party.

Although Sudhakaran was later granted bail, the action led AICC General Secretary (Communication) Jairam Ramesh to refer to Vijayan as “Mundu Modi” after the Kerala Congress’ official account accused the Chief Minister of imitating the “autocratic and undemocratic ways” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tensions are anticipated to rise as the Congress and CPM-led fronts compete for 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala.

Dispute in Mekedatu, Tamil Nadu
MK Stalin, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, attended the meeting in Bengaluru at a time when the Karnataka Congress government announced plans to construct a dam and reservoir on the Cauvery at Mekedatu, which Tamil Nadu believes will likely obstruct the Cauvery’s water flow into the state.

Despite being partners in the South against the BJP, the Congress and the DMK have opposing views on building a reservoir on the Cauvery river near Mekedatu, which borders the two states.

Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar of Karnataka, according to Tamil Nadu BJP President Annamalai, would not provide water to Tamil Nadu. After the Congress-led Karnataka government’s stance on the dam project, Annamalai further said that Stalin would compromise on Tamil Nadu’s rights if he attended the opposition gathering in Bengaluru. If the CM decides to attend the meeting, the BJP would launch a “Go back Stalin” movement, he said.

Despite the lengthy history of conflict between the two states on the project, a new wave of controversy started when Shivakumar stated that a dam will be built on the Cauvery near Mekedatu.

Durai Murugan, general secretary of the DMK and minister of water resources for Tamil Nadu, responded to the remark by claiming that doing so would be equivalent to defying the Supreme Court’s decision in the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT). He cited the 2007 CWDT ruling and said that any unapproved development on the river may hurt Tamil Nadu and its farmers’ interests and should not be done without their approval.

Along with the BJP, the major opposition party in the state, the AIADMK, has also said that it would protest if the dam and reservoir projects are carried out by the Karnataka administration.

Although informal coalitions have been established in the past, The Indian Express observed that since the 1960s, these several parties have not united on a national scale to challenge the party in power. The bigger difficulty for the opposition is to convince people that despite their differences, they are united and that their top goal is a united, national opposition taking on the BJP.