Cracks in INDIA Bloc Widen After Bihar Debacle: SP MLA Pushes Akhilesh Yadav as New Opposition Face

Lucknow: The Congress party’s crushing defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections—reduced from 19 seats in 2020 to just six—has intensified demands within the INDIA opposition alliance for a leadership overhaul, with senior allies openly questioning the Congress’s ability to head the bloc.

In a significant statement, Samajwadi Party MLA from Lucknow Central, Ravidas Mehrotra, declared that SP national president and Kannauj MP Akhilesh Yadav should take over the leadership of the INDIA alliance. “Akhilesh Yadav should lead the INDIA bloc. The Samajwadi Party is fully capable of forming the government on its own in Uttar Pradesh,” Mehrotra said.

The SP, which emerged as the second-largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha with 37 seats in 2024, has been the strongest performer among non-Congress constituents of the alliance. Mehrotra also reiterated Akhilesh Yadav’s long-standing demand for a return to paper ballots, claiming the INDIA alliance would have formed the government in Bihar had ballot papers been used instead of EVMs.

The NDA secured a resounding victory in Bihar, capturing 202 of the 243 seats, while the Congress’s key ally RJD plummeted from 75 seats in 2020 to just 25.

The Bihar drubbing follows a string of electoral setbacks for the Congress in state polls since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, including losses in Haryana and Maharashtra—states where the party led the opposition campaign but failed to deliver.

Earlier voices of discontent within the alliance include Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee, who last year suggested West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should lead the bloc, stating that “Congress has failed” in multiple states. RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav had also endorsed Mamata Banerjee’s leadership, brushing aside resistance from Congress ranks.

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