Following thorough internal considerations, the Congress has commenced seat-sharing negotiations in several states with like-minded I.N.D.I.A. bloc parties for Lok Sabha elections, news agency PTI reported. According to PTI sources, top party leaders have been instructed to contact other coalition leaders, and conversations with certain parties have already begun. Formal discussions for seat-sharing with the Aam Aadmi Party will begin on Monday, according to sources cited by PTI.
The Congress' five-member seat-sharing committee, chaired by Mukul Wasnik and included senior politicians Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel, has already had internal discussions with state Congress heads and presented its findings to party chairman Mallikarjun Kharge.
The seat-sharing negotiations with other parties came after the 28-party opposition coalition vowed to take on the BJP as a unified front in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In order to defeat the BJP in 2024, the I.N.D.I.A. group has resolved to field a single opposition candidate in Lok Sabha elections. According to the PTI sources, Congress president Kharge has delegated responsibility for seat allocation with other parties to top officials, including members of the seat-sharing committee, PTI reported.
The Congress has pre-election coalitions with the DMK in Tamil Nadu, the RJD and JDU in Bihar, the JMM in Jharkhand, and others in Assam, but no links with several major parties in critical states.
The most problematic are Kerala, West Bengal, Delhi, and Punjab, where party insiders admit the difficulties of reaching seat-sharing agreements with I.N.D.I.A. bloc allies.
In West Bengal, despite being members of the opposition coalition, the TMC and Left do not wish to work together, and the Congress will have to choose between them.
Recent remarks by TMC leaders and Congress PCC president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury do not auger well for a future TMC-Congress alliance in the state.
In Kerala, the Congress has 19 of the state's 20 MPs, and an agreement with the CPI-M is unlikely because it would require resting its current MPs.
In Punjab, the state units of both the AAP and the Congress are certain of their win and refuse to enter into any agreement.
According to the PTI sources, state Congress groups in other states, including as Kerala, have also resisted any such seat-sharing, PTI reported.
According to recent claims by Akhilesh Yadav, who is upset with the party for not granting him any seats in the recent Madhya Pradesh assembly election and for Kamal Nath's accusations against him, all is not well between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.
However, the party is undertaking seat-sharing negotiations with all allies in the hopes of finding a middle ground that will bolster the opposition against the BJP.
According to the PTI sources, the party has resolved to finalise seat-sharing arrangements with other opposition parties by the end of this month.
Congress President Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday that leaders of I.N.D.I.A. parties will make a decision on the allotment of jobs in the opposition group within 10-15 days, amid speculation that the alliance might choose a convener ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
He also stated that all other issues, including the I.N.D.I.A. bloc's seat-sharing, will be handled shortly, with party sources predicting that this would be completed by the end of the month, PTI reported.
Kharge stated that the Congress is working on all 545 Lok Sabha constituencies and has appointed observers for all of them, but which party would fight which seat and how many will be determined soon after meetings with the opposition coalition constituents.
When questioned about how many seats the party would contest, he said: "We have already finalised parliamentary observers for all the constituencies. We will go and assess in each Parliamentary constituency."
"Ultimately, when the INDIA alliance is there and negotiations are held in each state, the exact number will come out. But, we are trying to put in our efforts everywhere," he said.