Congress Leaders Call for Delaying Seat-Sharing Talks with INDIA Bloc Partners
Some Congress leaders have called for delaying the seat-sharing talks with INDIA bloc partners for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections till November, so as to do it from a position of strength. This call comes amid confidence among some party leaders about the party faring well in the upcoming assembly polls in five states.
The call from a section of leaders, particularly those from states where the Congress is directly in a contest with some INDIA bloc partners, came while the top party leadership pitched for strengthening the Congress as well as the opposition bloc.
During the two-day brainstorming session of the Congress Working Committee, several leaders supported the call to strengthen the Congress organisation and the opposition INDIA alliance, but they asserted that the party should not rush into seat-sharing arrangements with like-minded parties.
During the two-day parleys, Sonia Gandhi called for strengthening the INDIA alliance, while Rahul Gandhi said both the Congress party and the opposition bloc should be strengthened. Several leaders pointed out that this should not be done at the cost of the Congress.
During the extended CWC meet on Sunday, the party’s state unit chiefs of the four poll-bound states gave their reports on preparedness and the road map for winning the polls.
During the deliberations, some leaders expressed apprehensions about AAP leaders continuing their attack and causing hurt to party leaders even when they had stopped doing so. Some Delhi and Punjab leaders, including former Union minister Ajay Maken, Alka Lamba and Partap Singh Bajwa, spoke against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge assured the state leaders that any talks on seat sharing with other parties would be done only in consultations with state units.
Maken told the leadership that while they were in favour of the INDIA bloc, the Congress should not rush into seat-sharing talks and should wait till the results in these five states come. He called for holding seat-sharing talks from a position of strength instead of doing so now, as the opposition parties were pushing for it in their interest.
Maken said that AAP leaders were announcing contesting in states where the Congress was in a position to form its government and were attacking Congress leaders. He demanded that it should stop.
Punjab leaders Bajwa and Amrinder Singh Raja Warring did not favour having a tie-up with the AAP in their state, as their leaders were being targeted.
Some leaders of the INDIA alliance want that seat sharing should be done at the earliest and Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP and Akhilesh Yadav of the SP have called for doing this by September-end.
The opposition parties are working towards putting up one joint candidate against the NDA in every Lok Sabha constituency, but there are several obstacles before a final arrangement is made. There are differences on seat sharing among parties in several states, including Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal and Kerala.
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