Vote Splitters or Game-Changers?

Humayun Kabir

India’s political landscape is once again getting crowded with new party banners, ambitious launches, and familiar claims of “alternatives.” In just the last fortnight, three new political outfits have emerged across three states. In West Bengal, Humayun Kabir has floated the Janata Unnayan Party; in Odisha, former Congress MLA Mohammed Moquim has unveiled a party to be formally launched on January 12, National Youth Day; and in Telangana, K. Kavitha, recently expelled from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), has declared her intention to chart an independent political course.

While the circumstances behind these moves differ, they collectively raise familiar questions: What inspires the formation of new parties? Can they alter political equations meaningfully? Do they represent genuine alternatives or merely fragments born of personal conflict? Past experience suggests that while new parties are often launched with optimism, only a handful have left a lasting imprint.

Opportunistic Splinters

West Bengal offers the most immediate test. Assembly elections are scheduled for April–May, and Kabir’s Janata Unnayan Party will face its first electoral trial. Kabir was elected in 2021 as a Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate but now challenges the same party. He has claimed his party will contest 182 constituencies and win at least 100 seats. He accuses Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of appeasing Hindus and abandoning secularism. Yet, Kabir himself appears to pursue Muslim vote bank–centric politics, focusing on 43 Muslim-majority constituencies in Murshidabad, Malda, and North Dinajpur.

Whether such a strategy, centred on emotional and religious mobilisation while side lining socio-economic concerns, can seriously challenge the TMC remains doubtful. Even alliances with AIMIM or the Indian Secular Front (ISF) offer no guarantee. AIMIM’s recent Bihar success was largely confined to Seemanchal, showing its pan-India appeal is limited. Similarly, ISF’s only achievement to date is its single seat in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections. In this context, alliances with these parties may prove a cropper.

Mohammed Moquim in Odisha faces a different challenge. On December 8, he wrote to Sonia Gandhi, citing Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s age as a hindrance, questioning Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, and suggesting Priyanka Gandhi should lead the party. A week later, Moquim was expelled. Against the backdrop of a weakened Congress, a BJD-dominated state, and an expanding BJP, Moquim’s immediate challenge is organisational survival. Even if he positions his party regionally, it may end up benefiting the BJP by dividing anti-BJP votes rather than emerging as a credible alternative.

Telangana presents a more complicated picture. K. Kavitha’s break with the BRS follows her arrest in the Delhi liquor policy case and her time in Tihar Jail. After her release in August 2024, she has consistently targeted her party for corruption and called its organisation “a joke.” She was expelled by her father and BRS leader, K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), and resigned as a Legislative Council member, with her resignation recently accepted. Kavitha has announced that her Telangana Jagruthi Samiti will be transformed into a full-fledged political party, opening its office close to the BRS headquarters, signalling her immediate target. Given BRS’s declining electoral performance, Kavitha may attract some discontented leaders. However, this alone does not solve the larger challenge of building a credible, sustainable alternative.

Born From Breakups

A common thread runs through these cases. Kabir, Moquim, and Kavitha launched new parties after being expelled. Personal grievance and the urge to settle scores appear to be strong motivations. Successful new parties in India rest on clear ideology, new social coalitions, or distinct policy visions. The rise of Dravidian parties, the Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) stunning first-election victory in Andhra Pradesh, and the Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) breakthrough in giving Dalits representation in UP—a state long dominated by Yadav-OBC hegemony—illustrate how parties succeed when they build a strong foundation and challenge entrenched power structures. By contrast, parties formed merely as alternatives or around individual charisma often collapse.

Indian political history is full of such examples. Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party merged with Congress after an initial flourish. In Karnataka, the Karnataka Janata Paksha, floated by B. S. Yediyurappa, failed to establish itself and was dissolved. The post-Emergency Janata Party, which once promised to unite anti-Congress forces, collapsed due to factionalism. Even high-profile experiments like Prashant Kishore’s Bihar venture ended in humiliation.

In India’s already crowded political arena, a party that lacks a fundamentally fresh approach risks being little more than a vote-splitting distraction, often benefiting the ruling party. Even when they survive an initial defeat, momentum and mobilisation weaken, making sustained relevance difficult. The critical question is whether these formations will remain mere vote-splitters or emerge as game-changers. History shows they seldom do.

(The writer is a political commentator. Views personal.)