How did the Opposition fare in 2025

Electoral defeats, breakup of alliances and cross-voting, 2025 was a year of disappointments for India’s Opposition. After failing to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party to recapture the Lok Sabha in 2024, the Congress-led bloc — Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) also lost State elections in Delhi and Bihar this year. From Aam Aadmi Party to Trinamool Congress, allies have also exited the INDIA bloc over disagreements on various issues and seat-sharing formulae.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which kicked off just before the Bihar elections in November, provided a united platform for INDIA bloc to protest. Led by Rahul Gandhi, Opposition leaders such as Tejashwi Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Kanimozhi accused the Election Commission of India of voter disenfranchisement, vote fraud and  favouring the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). This was a predominant poll plank for the Opposition during Bihar elections

However, after Bihar re-elected NDA, giving Nitish Kumar an unprecedented tenth term as CM, Congress was left alone blaming ‘vote fraud’ for its electoral drubbing. Its allies such as National Conference (NC) and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) (NCP-SP) have distanced themselves from it.

The year kicked off on an acrimonious note after 10 Opposition MPs part of the Parliament’s Joint Committee on Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 were suspended for ‘unruly behaviour’. The suspended MPs alleged that the Committee chair Jagadambika Pal had set a deadline for the submitting its report and pushed the ‘clause-by-clause’ consideration meeting ‘unilaterally’ without discussion. Moreover, Mr. Pal suspended the MPs allegedly after “speaking to someone on the phone” during the meeting.

Ending AAP’s 12-year reign in the capital, BJP stormed to power winning 48 seats in the 70-member Assembly. The Aam Aadmi Party, which could not agree on a pre-poll alliance with its INDIA ally Congress, was reduced to 22 seats. The two parties had contested jointly for the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. Congress, which fought on all 70 seats, failed to open its account. AAP chief and ex-CM Arvind Kejriwal lost his New Delhi constituency to BJP’s Parvesh Verma by 4,000 votes with Congress’ Sandeep Dikshit polling 4,568 votes.

The Opposition’s loss is largely due to AAP and Congress focusing on campaigning against each other apart from targetting BJP, which sent mixed messages to the electorate. INDIA allies Shiv Sena and NC criticised the AAP-Congress for eating into each others’ votes.

After questioning Congress’ ability to lead INDIA, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee told her MLAs that her party would be contesting solo in the West Bengal Assembly elections due in 2026. The two had also contested the 2024 Lok Sabha polls separately in Bengal, with the Trinamool retaining 29 of the 42 seats, while Congress was reduced to one seat.

‘Congress has no base in West Bengal and the TMC will not try to strengthen the opposition alliance at its own cost,” opined TMC leaders while accusing the Congress of ‘backstabbing’ allies in State polls. While the TMC has not formally exited the INDIA bloc, it has been gradually distancing itself from the Congress. Neither Ms. Banerjee nor her nephew and TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee participated in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’ in August-September, fielding Yusuf Pathan instead.

After losing Delhi, AAP formally exited the INDIA bloc. Accusing Congress of criticising its own alliance partners and not unifying the different parties, AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh announced his party’s exit, adding that it would contest Bihar polls on its own.

“INDIA bloc can decide for itself but we are not a part of it. We fought Lok Sabha together, but since then have fought Haryana, Delhi and Punjab bypolls separately and will fight Bihar also separately. Sometimes they (Congress) criticise Akhilesh Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray or Mamata Banerjee. As the biggest member of the bloc they (Congress) should unify all, have they done that,” asked Mr. Singh.

Tapping into fears of exclusion from voter lists, Rahul Gandhi led the 1,300 km-long ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’ across 25 districts in Bihar in August. Highlighting the issues faced by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Booth Level Agents (BLAs) over the looming deadline to verify voters in the SIR process, the Yatra drew huge crowds across Bihar. Putting up a united front against the NDA, other party members of the INDIA bloc walked alongside Mr. Gandhi - Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, TMC’s Yusuf Pathan. Congress’ Bihar alliance chiefs — Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Dipankar Bhattacharya (CPI-ML), Mukesh Sahni (VIP) too joined Mr. Gandhi in spreading the message of ‘Vote chori’, alleging that the ECI’s exercise was a threat to delete voters not favouring the BJP.

Fielding former Supreme Court judge, Justice B. Sudershan Reddy, as the Opposition’s joint candidate for Vice-President, INDIA hoped to reduced the NDA’s margin of victory. Considering the majority the NDA holds in both Houses, its candidate — then Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan was slated to win. INDIA managed to get all its MPs to vote. TMC’s Sudip Bandhopadhyay and Saugata Roy who were ill, Congress’ Imran Masood, Ve. Vaithilingam and Imran Pratapgarhi who were abroad, and usual absentees Kamal Haasan and Harbhajan Singh too turned up.

However, the result exposed chinks in INDIA’s unity as Mr. Radhakrishnan won 452 votes — atleast 13 votes more than the number of NDA MPs of 439. Inspite of boasting ‘100% turnout’ with 315 MPs, Mr. Reddy fell short by 15 votes. The Opposition alleged all the 15 votes which were invalidated were its own, but did not rule out cross-voting.

The Mahagatbandhan (MGB) faced a historic defeat in the Bihar polls, reduced to mere 35 seats but polling 37.6% of the votes. The NDA emerged victorious winning 202 of the 243 seats, amassing 46.5% of the votes with the BJP and JD(U) winning 89 and 85 seats respectively. NDA’s caste-based tie ups, the Modi-Nitish popularity among women voters and its sustained campaign against MGB’s ‘Jungle Raj’ worked in its favour as did the polling eve dole out of ₹10,000 to one crore ‘Jeevika Didis’ under the state government’s scheme to empower women.

However, it was the misgivings in INDIA’s campaign which handed NDA’s its biggest victory in Bihar. Internal conflicts over seat-sharing, delayed campaigns, RJD’s rigidity over fielding Tejashwi Yadav as the CM face plagued the Opposition’s campaign. Voters also believed in NDA’s power to deliver on its promise of ‘one crore jobs’ over MGB’s ‘one government job per family’. Women, who faced the highest deletions from electoral rolls, turned out in larger numbers than men and preferred the NDA over the MGB, showed The Hindu’s research.

Post-elections, both Congress and RJD faced internal conflicts. The Lalu Prasad family saw the high-profile exit of Roshni Acharya from its ranks, months after Tej Pratap Yadav’s expulsion. On review, RJD leaders blamed poor ticket distribution, the Jeevika Didi dole-out, wasted focus on SIR and Mr. Tejashwi’s political aide Sanjay Yadav’s poor leadership for its drubbing.

The Congress high command, on the other hand, stuck to its claim of ‘vote fraud’ inspite of its local leaders pointing out campaign flaws like RJD’s ‘Jungle Raj baggage’, influx of ‘outsiders’ and ineffective leadership by AICC in-charge for Bihar Krishna Allavuru. INDIA ally, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) too was upset that it was not given any seats to contest in Bihar.

Rahul Gandhi has seen steady dip in support over its claims of ‘vote fraud’ and terming the SIR as a ‘voter disenfranchisement’ exercise among his own allies. While most top Congress leaders such as Priyanka Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera and K.C. Venugopal continue to accuse the Election Commission of ‘murdering democracy’, INDIA allies like NC and NCP have distanced themselves from this claim. J&K CM Mr. Omar Abdullah stated that ‘vote chori’ was raised only by Congress and the “INDIA bloc has got nothing to do with it”, while NCP-SP MP Supriya Sule said, “If there is data (on ‘vote chori’), let us have a debate”. Both Mr. Abdullah and Ms. Sule countered Mr. Gandhi’s allegations of rigged Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), stating they did not question its use.

While Opposition members staged joint protests in Parliament over SIR, no other party, apart from Congress attended the ‘Vote Chori’ rally held in Delhi’s Ram Lila Maidan on December 14.

The final blow to INDIA’s Maharashtra alliance dubbed Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) came in December in the civic polls held across the State. In the first round of local body elections in Maharashtra, the MVA managed to win only 52 of the 288 municipal councils and nagar panchayats which went to polls. While Congress managed to win 28 mayoral posts, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP-SP won only nine and seven mayoral posts – virtually wiping out the Thackeray and Pawar clan’s clout in semi-urban Maharashtra.

Immediately after the results, Congress announced it plans to go solo for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, while Shivsena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray buried a 15-year feud with cousin and MNS chief Raj Thackeray. The two Shiv Sena offshoots bank on the ‘Marathi manoos’ plank to regain the city as the battle for their survival. Similarly, the Pawar clan called a truce after NCP-SP joined hands with Ajit Pawar to contest jointly for the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad civic polls. The NCP faces two coalitions – Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) along with its new ally MNS, and the BJP-Sena coalition.

Even the BJP-Sena are showing cracks as BJP has refused to give in to Sena’s demand to contest on 35-50 of the 165 seats in the two municipal councils. Confusion remains over the Mahayuti in Pune as Sena is likely contest the council polls solo, though it has allied with the BJP for Mumbai.