The indecision continues over the date for the very first rally of the INDIA bloc, which for now is scheduled to be held in Nagpur, Maharashtra. The festival season and hectic poll preparations for Assembly elections in five States have thrown the plans for the bloc’s first rally into disarray. The election season also has put on the back-burner the INDIA bloc’s Mumbai resolution to finalise its seat-sharing arrangements at the earliest.
According to sources, the INDIA bloc is considering a band of dates between October 20 to November 10. This continued uncertainty comes after the fiasco of declaring Bhopal as the venue after the first meeting of the bloc’s coordination panel on September 13, and then unceremoniously cancelling it.
“There are many factors that are coming in the way. There are urban local bodies elections on 4th in Nagpur, there are festivals around the same time and the ongoing campaign for the assembly polls in five states. But we are hopeful that one of the dates between October 20th to November 10th will be fixed for the rally,” a senior opposition leader said. Originally, the rally was planned for the first week of October in Bhopal, but Congress’s Madhya Pradesh chief Kamal Nath shot down the plan, citing campaign commitments.
Meanwhile, the mechanism of coordination panels and working groups that was created after INDIA’s Mumbai meeting is completely out of gear. After the September 13 meeting, the coordination panel has not met. Originally planned as a 14-member panel, it was reduced to 13 members, with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) choosing to stay out of the formation. The campaign committee and the three working groups on media, social media and research have not met either.
INDIA bloc had also resolved to finalise the seat sharing arrangements across the country between the constituents at the earliest, though not much headway has been made in this direction. As per sources, though talks are going on at some levels in States where there is already an alliance in place, such as in Bihar, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, there are no concrete conversations in other States.
The Assembly elections also created a fresh set of challenges and grievances. The Samajwadi Party and Left parties are both unhappy with the Congress, for not accommodating them in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. “There is no conversation at all, despite us telling them unequivocally that we should be given a few seats in Madhya Pradesh. How can the Congress then expect us to be generous towards them in Uttar Pradesh,” a Samajwadi Party leader asked.
Similarly, the Left is deeply unhappy, with the vacillation about offering them a couple of Assembly seats in Telangana. “We are told that CPI and CPI (M) each will be given two seats but there is no clear communication on which are these seats. The Congress wants our support for a shot at power and all we are asking for is respectable presence,” a Left leader said.
