The Congress national alliance committee on Thursday held a meeting with the party president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi. The committee made several recommendations for the seat-sharing negotiations with I.N.D.I.A partners for upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Senior Congress leaders – Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, KC Venugopal, Salman Khurshid, Mukul Wasnik and others – were present at the meeting. Chairman of the Congress national alliance committee Wasnik said the committee briefed Kharge and Gandhi about the suggestions made by the party leaders in the states. The committee had held meetings with the party leaders in various states on the seat-sharing and noted their suggestions.
Wasnik, while speaking to reporters, said further discussions will take place with the I.N.D.I.A partners at the earliest as and whenever they will be available for discussions.
The seat-sharing discussions were being given top priority, he added.
However, the Congress leader said he could not give any specific deadline for when seat-sharing talks will be completed.
Congress’ strategy for seat-sharing in UP
The source said that in the report submitted by the national alliance committee to the Congress president, there was a recommendation to talk about seat-sharing with the alliance partner in UP based on 2009 performance. Congress believes that if the performance of Congress in the last Lok Sabha was poor then the performance of Samajwadi Party was also not so good. Hence, Congress should stake claim to contest all the seats it won in 2009. In 2009, the grand old party won 21 seats in UP, while SP 23 seats.
The UP state unit of Congress is continuously demanding the central leadership to contest in 50 per cent seats i.e. 40 constituencies. The UP leadership of Congress believes that Congress needs Akhilesh Yadav as much as he needs the grand old party in the Lok Sabha elections, the sources said.
The state unit believes that the trend of Muslim voters will be towards Congress in the Lok Sabha elections. If SP and Congress contest elections separately, then SP will also have to bear the brunt of the division of Muslim votes, they added.
Earlier, 10 seats were fixed for Uttar Pradesh by the national alliance committee, but after pressure from the state unit, yesterday, the party is rethinking, the sources said.