You don't have to be a superpower to be a pole. It's unlikely for any of the poles to fight each other directly after all. So even military parity is not necessary. The idea is to have your own foreign policy that's completely independent from others and not susceptible to coercion or extortion, like the Russians do even though their economy is so small (although that has a lot to do with their lopsided military power compared to their economy).
EU is headed there because of their new focus on common defence. France is focusing on getting the EU out of the alliance with the US and developing an independent foreign policy for the EU, including common defence.
Russia is not going to continue with China because the Chinese have territorial ambitions in Siberia. In fact, they are very likely to fight a war in the future, much more so than between India and China or US and China. It's because their borders are the softest. China would have attacked Russia long ago had the Russians not been militarily stronger, even without considering the massive nuke stockpile. There are only two navies in the world today that can sink the PLAN without them being able to put up much of a fight, US and Russia. It's primarily because of the vast quantities of SSNs both operate. India inviting Russia to the QUAD isn't for half-as*ed reasons.
As for India, we are practically guaranteed to step on every toe we find once we become big enough. And we are guaranteed to see a negative reaction to that. Even countries we consider as allies today may very well see us as a threat in the future. This includes France and Russia, not just the US or UK, let alone China. Our main objective will be to get closer to a set of countries where we are more in common with than other major powers. For example, there's Vietnam and Indonesia in the Southeast or a couple of African countries that will get richer in the future with shared security interests, along with the rest of South Asia. The armed forces have identified all major powers today as a threat to India in the future, which is why the focus on cutting imports has become so much more important now, to the point where the IAF Chief has even claimed MRFA will be our last import (and definitely no American fighter jets for MRFA).
Even in 2011, the IAF Chief wanted the govt to pursue ICBMs as a direct military challenge to the West. Or when India claims the IN will be the net security provider in the IOR, which basically is signalling to the world that the Indian Ocean is going to be India's Ocean, which is a significant challenge to the rest of the world (the very definition of stepping on the toes of others).