The Congress leadership signalled on Thursday that the party would concentrate on 255 seats in the next Lok Sabha elections, potentially indicating that it is willing to run for fewer seats than in the 2019 national elections, despite pushes and challenges from partners of the INDIA alliance.
Additionally, it declared that negotiations on seat sharing with partners in India will start right now.
The five-member national alliance committee of the Congress met with senior leader Rahul Gandhi, president Mallikarjun Kharge, and AICC general secretary (Organisation), K C Venugopal. The committee had been in intensive talks with state units for the past few days. After submitting its report to the leadership, the committee received approval to begin holding negotiations with INDIA bloc members.
Sources stated that earlier in the day, Kharge informed a different gathering of state in-charges and general secretaries of the AICC, state presidents of Congress, and leaders of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) that the party will concentrate on 255 seats. Rahul Gandhi was also present during the gathering. State officials interpreted it as a sign that the party was willing to run for fewer seats this time around in order to accommodate INDIA coalition parties.
The party ran for 421 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and won 52 of them. It participated in coalitions with the RJD in Bihar, the NCP in Maharashtra, the JD(S) in Karnataka, the JMM in Jharkhand, and the DMK in Tamil Nadu, among other parties in a few states. Accordingly, it had contested in only nine out of the 40 seats in Bihar, seven of the 14 seats in Jharkhand, 21 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 25 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra, and nine of the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu. In Uttar Pradesh, it contested in 70 of the 80 seats.
The Congress is aware that there may be challenges associated with seat sharing in certain states, particularly Delhi, Punjab, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh.
The AAP has indicated that it is open to share seats with the Congress in Punjab; however, the Congress state unit feels that a coalition with the AAP, which is in power in the state, would be suicide. Additionally opposed to any collaboration with the Trinamool Congress is the Bengal unit. The Samajwadi Party had indicated that it would run for 65 seats in Uttar Pradesh, leaving just 15 seats available for the Congress and the RLD.
The party has made the decision to negotiate state-by-state with parties in India. Put differently, this indicates that the Congress would have separate discussions with the AAP about issues such as seat sharing in Delhi and Punjab, as well as in other states where the party led by Arvind Kejrwial is said to have some influence, such Gujarat and Haryana.
The Left and other parties who choose to run for office in multiple states under the INDIA coalition banner would face similar circumstances.
“There is already an alliance which is called the INDIA alliance. And we will be talking to parties with influence in various areas and keeping their influence in view, we will have our dialogue. And certainly it will be a state-wise discussion and we will see how to move forward,” senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik, the convenor of the alliance committee, said after the meeting at Kharge’s residence.
Salman Khurshid, Mohan Prakash, and former chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel round out the panel.
Significantly, Wasnik said while the Congress has not decided on the number of seats it would contest, “our whole intention is to ensure that the INDIA alliance gets majority and forms the government. We will talk to various parties of the alliance with that objective in mind. Our objective is to ensure that the INDIA alliance forms the government at the Centre.”
The party, leaders said, would now contact alliance partners for talks on seat sharing but said it has not set a deadline for completion of the exercise. On seat sharing with the AAP in Delhi and Punjab, Wasnik said, “I will not be in a position to say how we are going to deal with each of the political parties in the alliance. We are going to seek their convenience as and when they are available…”
The Congress manifesto committee, led by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, convened for the first time on Thursday as the country prepared for elections. According to Chidambaram, the panel simply had preparatory talks and will get together again the following week. According to sources, the leadership also provided state units with comprehensive instructions on how to set up control rooms, media war rooms, and social media.
Kharge instructed the party’s leaders to put aside their disagreements, stop criticising one another, and stop discussing internal party issues in public. According to sources, the party has instructed the state units to start the candidate selection process as soon as possible and submit the initial list.
