Omar: INDIA on life support, backing Cong lone option

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and NC leader Omar Abdullah has said that the INDIA bloc is currently “on life support” and may end up in the “ICU” if it fails to stop infighting and match BJP’s 24x7 election mode. The only chance for the Opposition to mount a serious challenge to the BJP is to “rally around the Congress”, which has a pan-India presence, he said.

Abdullah, speaking at a Hindustan Times event on Saturday, detailed the “organisational and strategic failures” of the Opposition bloc, contrasting its approach with the BJP’s “unparalleled” work ethic.

“We’re sort of on life support, but every once in a while, somebody brings out his paddles and gives us a bit of a shock, and we get up again. But then, unfortunately, results like Bihar happen, and we slump down again, and then somebody has to wheel us into the ICU,” he said.

Abdullah acknowledged that regional parties were constrained by their limited geographical reach and said: “The heavy lifting will have to be done by the Congress.”

He also blamed the INDIA bloc for the return of Nitish Kumar to the BJP-led NDA, saying: “I believe that we pushed Nitish back into the arms of the NDA.”

Abdullah also pointed to the alliance’s failure to take a cohesive view, citing the decision to consciously exclude the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) from the Bihar seat-sharing arrangement despite party’s presence in the state.

He compared bloc’s electioneering to that of the BJP, and said the opposition alliance was structurally unable to compete with the ruling party’s disciplined approach. “They have an unparalleled election machine,” he said, noting that their strength went beyond mere organisation and funding.

He further said the BJP also had an “incredible work ethic” in terms of how they dealt with elections. “They fight every election as if their lives depend on it. We sometimes fight elections as if we don’t care,” the J&K Chief Minister said.

He referred to the 24x7 model of politics pursued by PM Narendra Modi and his team, and said that “no sooner has one election finished, they’ve already moved into the next territory... We move into those states two months before the elections. If lucky, we sew up our electoral alliances before the last date of filing nominations”.

Regarding the Muslim electorate, Abdullah suggested that the traditional recipients of the Muslim vote had “made a mistake” by taking the community for granted, and only engaging with them just before elections, leading to a churn that benefited parties such as the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM, which are willing to “espouse our cause for the entire period of five years”.

Asked if it meant that the results of the 2024 General Election were a fluke, Abdullah said: “No, I think the country sent a message to the Centre, to PM Modi and others in 2024 that things are not as rosy as you made them out to be, and that we are not happy with some of the decisions that have been taken.”

He added that after the 2024 elections, the BJP changed its approach and showed that it could work in an alliance format as well.