INDIA bloc leaders are seen during a meeting in New Delhi on June 8, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
Opposition INDIA bloc meeting — to forge unity and rework their strategy to take on the BJP — began in New Delhi on June 8, 2026.
Opposition parties’ top leaders, including Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress president and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah attended the meeting.
Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray attended the INDIA bloc meeting virtually. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said, “Shiv Sena (UBT) remains a committed member of the INDIA alliance. Our consistent stance has been—and will continue to be—that the INDIA bloc becomes more united and stronger.”
Mr. Raut said “We will fight together against the grave challenges facing the nation and bring meaningful change in 2029.”
In his opening remarks, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said “We demonstrated our solidarity and unity in a decisive manner in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 2026, when we stood firmly together to defeat the Modi government’s malicious bills regarding delimitation.”
Mr. Kharge further said “We must now strengthen and carry forward that same spirit to confront the myriad political, economic, social, and foreign policy challenges facing the country due to the Modi government’s misgovernance.”
Amid disarray within the INDIA bloc, with at least three major constituents — the DMK, the CPI(M) and the JMM — raising questions of the Opposition coalition, the Congress on Sunday (June 7, 2026) sought to project unity, asserting that 23 parties would participate in the gathering in Delhi and that even those skipping it had conveyed their “strong opposition” to the Narendra Modi government’s policies.
The bloc has been grappling with one crisis after another. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has already announced that it will not attend the meeting, calling the Congress’s decision to tie up with the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) in Tamil Nadu a “betrayal”.
Separately, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary M.A. Baby has written to all INDIA bloc partners, underlining the Congress’ campaign against the Left in Kerala, while Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) is learnt to be unhappy with the Congress unilaterally announcing its candidate for one of the two Rajya Sabha seats that are up for election in Jharkhand.
Published – June 08, 2026 12:52 pm IST
