Leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will meet on December 19 in Delhi. This will be the bloc’s first meeting in three months as all activities related to it were paused with the Congress focusing on the five-State Assembly elections.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh announced the date on X (formerly Twitter).
The top agenda of the meeting is to begin talks on seat sharing as was resolved in the bloc’s last meeting held in Mumbai on August 31 and September 1. Several Opposition parties have said, both privately and publicly, that the seat-sharing formula should have been in place by October-end and it is already too late. The campaign, they argued, can’t be structured without the seat-sharing formula.
The Congress with its defeat in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, is in a relatively weak position to negotiate. In Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Maharashtra the alliance is in place. However, problems will arise in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, and West Bengal. In West Bengal, both Trinamool Congress and the Left will insist that they will not ally with each other, leaving the Congress torn between the two. In Delhi and Punjab, the Congress will have to strike an alliance with their political opponents Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The State unit in Punjab, according to the sources, is inimical to having any electoral understanding with the very party that trounced them. In Uttar Pradesh, after the Madhya Pradesh snub, the Samajwadi Party that is the dominant force, is not willing to cede too large a space for the Congress.
The allies are also deeply unhappy with the Congress for going solo in the five-State Assembly elections. Two days before counting for the Assembly elections, the Congress had reached out to the leaders of INDIA bloc and called for a meeting on December 6. But at least three top leaders including Trinamool president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief and Tamil Nadu CM M.K. Stalin, and Janata Dal (United) leader and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar expressed their inability to attend the meeting. The meeting was then reframed as one for the Parliamentary leaders of the INDIA bloc, where they revisited their strategy for the Winter Session of Parliament.
