In the First Past the Post System (FPPS) in vogue in India, as well as in the UK (which rejected through a referendum a switchover to proportional representation), the opposition must learn to bury the hatchet in the spirit of esprit de corps so that it can field a common candidate in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. Otherwise, a split vote is a sure recipe for perpetuating the winner-takes-it-all distortion our polity has been a witness to. In the 2024 elections, the INDIA alliance came pretty close to dislodging the NDA. That modicum of success should egg it on to embrace more fully the Janata Party umbrella model of 1977, in which both king-size egos and ideologies were buried for the sake of a loftier goal. That the extreme right, the Jana Sangh, the BJP’s precursor, and the extreme left, the CPM, joined the Janata Party speaks volumes of the overarching desire not to allow Indira Gandhi, the architect of the infamous emergency of 1975, to return to power. It is another matter that the Janata experiment lasted just two years, with the socialist Madhu Limaye throwing the gauntlet at the Jana Sangh—ask your members to abjure the RSS or quit the government. He was fulminating against dual membership that meant divided loyalties. He forgot that the Sanghis wear their dual loyalties proudly on their sleeves.

The INDIA alliance should not be built only on the united opposition plank. In addition, it must offer credible changes to the status quo. Shrill rants like ‘vote chori’ and ‘EVM manipulation’ don’t strike a chord with the electorate,........

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