Pressure is being mounted on the Congress to yield the leadership of the INDIA bloc, with RJD president Lalu Prasad on Tuesday saying Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee should take over the reins of the Opposition alliance.

Lalu — who has been a staunch supporter of Sonia Gandhi — asserted that the Congress’s objections to Mamata’s leadership would not matter. “We will support Mamata. The Congress’s objection will make no difference. Mamata should be given the leadership (of INDIA). Give it to Mamata,” Lalu told reporters in Patna.

This comes close on the heels of Samajwadi Party general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav stating that “the INDIA bloc never accepted Rahul as its leader”.

Speaking along the same lines, Lalji Verma, the SP MP from Ambedkar Nagar, said. “Rahul Gandhi was never a leader of INDIA. It was formed to defeat the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections but the matter of leadership was not discussed at that time. Our leader was Akhilesh Yadav and he would remain our leader in any situation, be it a party or an alliance.”

Lalu’s statement came on a day when the INDIA bloc managed to come together for the first time in the winter session of Parliament to sign a notice for the removal of Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar.

The Trinamool Congress has so far in the session kept away from the INDIA bloc meetings over the Congress’s insistence on holding up House proceedings over the Adani issue. After initially going for a couple of INDIA bloc meetings in Parliament this session, the SP also began distancing itself, signalling a rift in the grouping.

Mamata had last week made it clear that she would take on the additional task of leading the INDIA bloc if asked to do so. Trinamool has for long maintained that it has a better track record in taking on the BJP than the Congress, which is also being seen as a poor coalition manager.

“The morale of the INDIA constituents is at an all-time low after the Maharashtra elections. There is a need to fill them with enthusiasm and keep them united. Delhi and Bihar are going to polls next year. Mamata is most suited to energise the Opposition at this juncture. She is a fighter, has weathered the BJP storm and stands undefeated,” an RJD MP close to the Lalu family said.

While the two SP leaders’ remarks are being seen by many in the INDIA bloc and outside as an effort to create pressure on the Congress and also form a ginger group within the Opposition to rein in the Grand Old Party, sources in the SP claimed otherwise.

They said “Akhilesh — following in his father’s footsteps — is inching closer to the BJP with the hope to play a saviour when some party pulls back its support from the Narendra Modi government”.

“Akhilesh is fed up with being out of power and so he is trying to send feelers to Modi by rejecting Rahul,” an SP leader said.

Imran Masood, Congress MP from Saharanpur, said: “Rahul is the only leader who can challenge the BJP with force. He is the only leader of the INDIA bloc. What the SP leaders are saying doesn’t have any weight. Akhilesh is not a national leader.”