The INDIA alliance was assembled in the summer of 2023 on a single premise: that if India's fractured opposition could coordinate seat-sharing across 543 constituencies, it could deny the BJP the majority it had relied on since 2014. Twenty-eight parties signed on. What followed was eighteen months of public bickering, private sabotage, and eventual partial coordination that produced mixed results.
The Seat-Sharing Problem
Every conceded seat in a first-past-the-post system is a real sacrifice. When the Congress party conceded a constituency to the SP or the TMC, it was not an abstract strategic move — it was asking local Congress workers, fundraisers, and candidates to stand down and campaign for a rival party. That is extraordinarily difficult. That it happened at all is, in political terms, remarkable. That it happened incompletely is entirely predictable.
The fault lines were starkest in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, and Punjab — four states where mutual suspicion between alliance partners was too deep for functional coordination. In each of those states, alliance breakdowns either gifted seats to the NDA or split votes in ways that changed outcomes.
Ideology vs. Arithmetic
The alliance's fundamental tension was never primarily tactical. It was philosophical. What does the INDIA bloc actually stand for, beyond opposing the BJP? The coalition includes parties with dramatically different positions on economic liberalisation, caste reservations, state autonomy, and foreign policy. A Tamil Nadu-based Dravidian party and a UP-based socialist party share almost nothing beyond their willingness to coordinate against a common opponent.
That is a foundation for electoral cooperation. It is not a foundation for governance.
The 2024 Verdict: Neither Vindication Nor Repudiation
The election results — which returned the NDA to power with a reduced, coalition-dependent majority — offered both sides a partial victory narrative. The BJP's need to rely on TDP and JD(U) for a majority marked a genuine weakening of its previously dominant position. The opposition's improved seat count in several states validated the coordination strategy where it worked.
But the alliance's failure to translate its combined vote share into a majority outcome pointed to the limits of pure electoral mathematics when the underlying political project remains undefined.
India needs an opposition that can not only count seats but articulate an alternative vision. The INDIA bloc has demonstrated it can do the former, occasionally. The latter remains the work ahead.