Such voices were only making Prime Minister Narendra Modi happy, who was being regularly targeted by the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi over various issues both inside and outside the parliament, the Congress leaders said.
The leadership issue resurfaced recently after the INDIA bloc lost the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections following the Haryana and UT Jammu and Kashmir polls where the Congress did not do well against the BJP. Jharkhand was the only saving grace where the opposition group could retain power for a second consecutive term.
The four assembly elections were crucial as they came months after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in which the Congress as well as the INDIA bloc emerged stronger by winning 234 of 543 seats against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which bagged 292 seats. The Congress doubled its tally from 52 in 2019 to 99 while the saffron party came down from 303 to 240, forcing it to take the support of JD-U and TDP.
However, the electoral losses in states gave another chance to the allies to prick Congress.
The voices against Rahul Gandhi were made by SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav, who blamed the Congress for not being able to defeat the BJP in several big states during the Lok Sabha elections and the recent state elections. RJD founder Lalu Prasad backed the claim of West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, who expressed her desire to lead the INDIA bloc and had earlier refused to join the group before the national elections.
"The TMC did nothing to strengthen the INDIA bloc. In fact, Rahul Gandhi played a key role in the formation of the group and is now leading it well inside the parliament. He is the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. His name was endorsed by all the opposition parties. All such voices suggesting a change of INDIA bloc leadership are only making PM Modi happy," Congress Working Committee (CWC) member and former West Bengal unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury told ETV Bharat.
"The Congress is the single largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha and is the only one in the INDIA bloc with a pan-country presence," he said.
Chowdhury, a former Lok Sabha leader of Congress, was one of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) coordinators in the 2024 Jharkhand elections.
In Maharashtra, rift between the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi showed when SP MLA Abu Azmi along with his colleague took the oath of office on a day the alliance had decided to boycott the ceremony to flag misuse of EVMs by the BJP-led Mahayuti. Later, Azmi threatened to leave the MVA over Shiv Sena UBT advertisement in a local newspaper hailing the December 6, 1992, demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
"The SP is very much a part of the MVA which is intact. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav decides the party's policy and not Abu Azmi," Special Invitee to the Congress Working Committee Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan told ETV Bharat.
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