The Congress leadership has hinted at rigid reservations about some parties in the Opposition camp, indicating that its coalition-making strategy is driven more by political trust than ideology.

The parties not invited to the Bharat Jodo Yatra’s concluding event in Srinagar on January 30 are neither formally aligned to the BJP nor considered to have a communal agenda. But the Congress suspects that most of them are working to harm the secular camp and have an implicit understanding with the BJP. There are doubts about their possible post-poll behaviour as well.

For instance, the Congress has decided not to have any relations with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, which it believes has a nexus with the RSS-BJP despite their ceaseless squabbles in public.

Congress leaders cite the examples of Goa and Gujarat to claim that the BJP uses some Opposition parties as puppets to bolster its electoral prospects. Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh has ruled out any alliance with the AAP in future.

The Congress nurtures similar suspicions about Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, arguing that it’s a BJP instrument, wielded to divide the Muslim vote. The AIMIM damaged the Congress’s prospects in Maharashtra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat and appears ready to do a repeat in Karnataka.

Congress leaders say their suspicions are based on empirical evidence and Owaisi’s tactical positioning, arguing that he acts in an aggressive manner only to provide legitimacy to the Sangh parivar’s communal rhetoric.

While the BJP has been trying to defame the Bharat Jodo Yatra using trivial issues, innuendos and doctored videos, Owaisi has chosen to lampoon Rahul Gandhi for walking in a T-shirt.

The AIMIM leader has wondered — in reference to Rahul’s figurative remark that he had “killed Rahul Gandhi” long ago — whether a ghost was walking in the Yatra.

Another predominantly Muslim party, Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF, has not been invited, either, despite the Yatra being a movement against divisive politics. While this shows that, for the Congress, political trust trumps ideology in choosing coalition partners, it also helps the party dilute the perception of “Muslim appeasement”.

Congress leaders have accused both Owaisi and Ajmal of engaging in communal politics and thus fuelling the BJP’s juggernaut. The party has also burnt its bridges with K. Chandrashekar Rao’s TRS, now renamed BRS (Bharat Rashtra Samithi).

The Congress suspects that Rao’s supposedly national ambition is a ploy to confuse the Opposition camp at the BJP’s behest. Congress leaders place the BJD in the same category, describing its leader Naveen Patnaik as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most trusted ally at the national level. The BJD has never failed to help the BJP out in Parliament over the past eight years. The AIADMK and the Akali Dal too have been bracketed with the BJP while Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP has been invited.

Although there is a trust deficit between the Congress and parties like the Trinamul Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the dominant feeling is that their leaders have been under compulsion and would stand up against Modi in critical situations. Senior Congress leaders are convinced about Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati being opposed to Modi’s politics in their hearts.

While Ramesh insists that the Yatra has nothing to do with the 2024 parliamentary elections and that the Srinagar invites should not be viewed in the context of electoral strategy, the Congress is clearly not desperate to expand its coalition beyond the existing partners.

While the party wants to sustain the alliances with the DMK, NCP, RJD, Shiv Sena, JMM and the JDU, as well as the Left in Bengal and Tripura, it is determined to confront the BJP on its own wherever the party is strong. For instance, the majority opinion in Karnataka is to go it alone despite the JDS having been invited to the Yatra’s concluding event.

The invite is being seen as a gesture of courtesy to former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda. The real political message lies in the decision not to extend the same courtesy to Arvind Kejriwal, Naveen Patnaik, Chandrashekar Rao or YSR Congress leader Jagan Mohan Reddy.