NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Congress to formally start seat-sharing talks with allies next week; alliance committee holds meetings (Eds: With file pics)
New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) Congress’s National Alliance Committee, set up to facilitate seat-sharing talks with allies, will hold meetings with party leaders from the states here on Friday and Saturday, and the negotiations with the allies will formally start next week after the panel submits a report to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge.
With the clock ticking for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and preparations taking shape for the party’s “Bharat Nyay Yatra”, the Congress, which sounded its poll bugle at a rally in Nagpur on Thursday, is set to hold a series of high-level meetings.
According to sources, Kharge held an interaction with the Congress general secretaries in-charge of all states after the rally at Nagpur on Thursday evening and discussed the upcoming polls and organisational issues.
The five-member National Alliance Committee of the Congress is scheduled to hold meetings on Friday and Saturday with leaders from the states where the party is likely to contest the general election in an alliance with other INDIA bloc constituents.
The committee will then submit a report to the party president, providing details for the negotiation, including listing out the seats where the Congress is in a strong position.
The sources added that while in some states, talks with the allies have already started at the local level, the negotiations will formally start next week, after the report is presented. They also said while the equations with other parties may differ in states, the final call on the alliance will be taken from a “national perspective”.
The committee formed last week is headed by senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik and has Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Salman Khurshid and Mohan Prakash as its members.
The first meeting of the party’s manifesto committee for the general election, headed by former Union minister P Chidambaran, is scheduled to be held on January 4.
Kharge, along with former party chief Rahul Gandhi and general secretary K C Venugopal, held a series of meetings with state Congress chiefs and other leaders over the last few days.
Another meeting will be held on January 4 with party leaders, including Congress chiefs and legislative party leaders from the states through which the “Bharat Nyay Yatra” will pass. The final route of the march will be decided at the meeting.
The detailed route of the yatra will be announced on January 8 while a theme song will be released on January 12.
The sources said the yatris will cover around 120 kilometres a day, including around five to seven km on foot.
Raut irks Congress
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Friday said his party would contest 23 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, and the seat-sharing talks with the Congress have to “start from zero” as the latter had `not won any seat’ in the previous elections, a statement that drew a sharp response from the state Congress.
The majority of the Sena MPs are now with the Eknath Shinde faction and the Congress now happens to be the biggest party in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, state Congress leaders Sanjay Nirupam and Milind Deora pointed out.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party and Congress are part of the MVA.
Speaking to reporters, Raut said the Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders, including Thackeray, have been holding talks with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and general secretary K C Venugopal over seat-sharing.
“We have said that we have been contesting 23 seats in Maharashtra and (will also contest) Dadra Nagar Haveli,” Raut said, adding that “the Shiv Sena is the biggest party” in Maharashtra while the Congress is a national party.
The current MP of Dadra Nagar Haveli is from the Sena.
“We have decided that the seats won by us (MVA allies) will be discussed later. The Congress does not figure in it as it has not won any seat in Maharashtra. So talks with the Congress have to start from zero in the state,” Raut further said.
Asked about state Congress leaders pointing out that the Sena is no longer a united party, Raut said the Congress did not split up, and yet it lost the recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. (PTI)
