New Delhi: Stunned by the defeat in the Hindi heartland, the Congress has called for a meeting of the INDIA Opposition alliance. The INDIA bloc’s leaders will meet at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence in New Delhi on December 6 to chalk out a strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The meeting comes almost two months after the alliance last met. In fact, several constituents of the INDIA bloc were blaming the Congress for being engrossed in the Assembly elections rather than concentrating on key issues that were in front of the alliance.
Insiders claim that the Opposition leaders will now plan joint rallies that were put on hold due to the Assembly elections. One such rally, planned in the first week of October in Bhopal, was cancelled at the last moment. Talks on seat-sharing between regional outfits will also gain momentum now, they said. Some parties like Trinamul Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and Samajwadi Party wanted early finalisation of seat-sharing, but the talks were delayed due to the Assembly polls.
One of the key architects of the INDIA bloc, the JD(U), has claimed that the Congress remained preoccupied with the elections in five states and ignored the alliance, but it failed to perform well and the results were out. The party leaders further added that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was the architect of the alliance and could navigate the ship through rough circumstances. In the run-up to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, a war of words had broken out between Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath. The issue was seat-sharing, in the course of which the talks between the two parties broke off. To salvage the situation Congress leadership had to speak to Akhilesh Yadav to sort out the matter.
At least 26 parties have come together as part of the INDIA bloc to take on the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls next year, and have so far held three rounds of deliberations in Patna, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
