The UPShot | Analysts Say That India’s Lok Sabha Elections Would Be Costen by Poor Coordination and Unchecked Ego Clashes

With the finalization of the opposition INDIA bloc’s long-pending seat-sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha polls, Wednesday proved to be a historic day in Uttar Pradesh politics. At a press conference, it was revealed that the Samajwadi Party (SP) will run for 63 seats, the Congress for 17, and the Azad Samaj Party for one.

However, given the “ego clashes” and “rift” that emerged during the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections of last year between the two main INDIA allies, the Congress and Samajwadi Party, many political observers seem doubtful about the arrangement. They claim that if these disagreements continue to smolder, the INDIA group may lose the Lok Sabha elections, just as what occurred in MP.

The chairman of Bhimrao Ambedkar University’s political science department, Shashikant Pandey, likened the process of running for office to that of a machine. To get the best outcomes possible, a machine’s parts must all operate in the same direction. Similar to this, an alliance’s ability to succeed depends greatly on how well the parties coordinate at all levels. But based on previous instances, it is unlikely that the INDIA bloc’s allies would coordinate for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, Pandey remarked News18.

The 2023 Madhya Pradesh assembly votes, which political pundits had dubbed a litmus test for the allies ahead of the 2024 national elections, were the first occasion when the strained relations between the Congress and SP were evident. Both parties are aligned with the INDIA front and are prepared to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the Lok Sabha elections.

Pandey drew attention to the resolution that the alliance’s founding participants had endorsed, which stipulated that seat-sharing would be determined by a spirit of “give and take.” “The discussions, agreements, and promises were intended for the Lok Sabha elections, but the outcomes were apparent well ahead of schedule in the 2023 state elections in five states: Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Mizoram,” he said.

As the seat-sharing negotiations broke down, the Congress and SP clashed for four assembly seats in MP, signaling the beginning of a schism. The SP 71 and 230 seats were contested by the Congress. A struggle between the two groups was seen at Chitrangi, Medgaon, Bhander, and Raj Nagar. With the exception of Chitrangi, the Congress has won all of these seats in 2018. A candidate for the Bijawar assembly seat, which the SP had won in the 2018 elections, was also declared by the party.

In the assembly elections, however, the two parties fared badly. The SP finished up with its lowest-ever vote percentage of only 0.46% and failed to gain any seats. The BJP easily won 163 seats, securing a two-thirds majority, while the Congress, which was expecting to win, only managed to get 66 seats.

The failure of the INDIA allies in the MP elections, according to SK Dwivedi, a former dean of the political science department at the University of Lucknow, intensified the blame game between the two parties. The Samajwadi Party attributed the Congress’s defeat on the party’s conceit and claimed crude comments made by Kamal Nath, the president of Madhya Pradesh, about SP leader Akhilesh Yadav.

Ramdhari Singh Dinkar is credited with saying that a person’s conscience perishes before them when tragedy strikes. The obscene remarks made by Kamal Nath ji against Akhilesh Yadav ji, our national president, are the reason Madhya Pradesh lost. According to SP spokesman Manoj Singh Kaka, “It is true for other places also where the Congress lost; their leaders become egoistic.”

The Samajwadi Party also declared that the Congress would have to face the consequences of its actions anytime it degrades Dalits, the lower castes, and marginalized groups.

The Samajwadi Party was criticized by Congress’s UP chairman, Ajay Rai, who stated that rather than seizing the opportunity, the party ought to have stepped out and helped his party in the areas where the SP is seen as powerful. Rather, he said, the SP fielded candidates in seats held by members of Congress in an effort to erode his party’s support base.

According to Dwivedi, the Congress and the SP must work together to really unify and concentrate on the larger objective in order to accomplish the INDIA bloc’s mission to defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha Polls.

“It’s also important for the parties to put their egos aside so they can make an impact in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, which the INDIA bloc will undoubtedly find difficult to win,” he said.