The INDI Alliance was supposed to be a grand opposition coalition, united by one common objective, to take on the BJP. But in Indian politics, alliances often come with an interesting footnote, everyone is united until the question of power, seats or political space appears.
That contradiction was on display in Delhi as the DMK stayed away from the Congress-led Opposition’s protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. For a coalition that routinely talks about opposition unity, the absence of one of its most important southern allies is hardly a minor detail.
Tamil Nadu is not just another state for the Opposition. It is one of the most crucial states for the Lok Sabha elections, and the DMK has been the dominant force in the state’s anti-BJP political landscape. If Congress wants the INDI Alliance to remain a serious national proposition, keeping the DMK on board would seem like basic political arithmetic.
Yet relations between the two parties have reportedly been getting increasingly uncomfortable, particularly after Congress chose to ally with actor-turned-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). From the DMK’s perspective, Congress trying to cultivate another power centre in Tamil Nadu looks less like alliance-building and more like Congress shopping around for political leverage.
And this is where Rahul Gandhi’s political calculations invite a rather obvious question, how many boats does one politician believe he can stand in simultaneously?
The Congress leadership may see an alliance with TVK as a clever attempt to secure a larger share of power in Tamil Nadu. But the DMK could reasonably see it as Congress preparing a Plan B while still expecting the DMK to remain Plan A. That is not exactly how trust is manufactured in coalition politics.
The DMK staying away from the Delhi protest therefore carries a message. It suggests that the alliance’s unity is far less solid than its public statements suggest. And if Congress continues to expand its relationships with DMK’s political competitors, it risks turning a strategic alliance into a strategic headache.
For Rahul Gandhi, the lesson should be painfully simple that political alliances are not buffet counters where you can keep picking new partners without upsetting the people already sitting at your table.
Tamil Nadu could ultimately become the test of whether Congress has a coherent alliance strategy, or merely an impressive collection of political experiments.
