Congress To Formally Start Seat-Sharing Talks With Allies Next Week; Alliance Committee Holds Meetings

The National Alliance Committee of Congress, which was established to help with seat-sharing negotiations with allies, will meet with state party leaders this Friday and Saturday. Following the panel’s report submission to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, formal negotiations with the allies will begin the following week.

With the clock ticking for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and preparations taking shape for the party’s “Bharat Nyay Yatra”, the Congress, which sounded its poll bugle at a rally in Nagpur on Thursday, is set to hold a series of high-level meetings.

After Thursday night’s rally in Nagpur, Kharge reportedly met with the Congress general secretaries overseeing every state to talk about organisational concerns and the impending elections.

The five-member National Alliance Committee of the Congress is scheduled to hold meetings on Friday and Saturday with leaders from the states where the party is likely to contest the general election in an alliance with other INDIA bloc constituents.

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The committee will then submit a report to the party president, providing details for the negotiation, including listing out the seats where the Congress is in a strong position.

The sources added that while in some states, talks with the allies have already started at the local level, the negotiations will formally start next week after the report is presented. They also said while the equations with other parties may differ in states, the final call on the alliance will be taken from a “national perspective”.

The committee formed last week is headed by senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik and has Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Salman Khurshid, and Mohan Prakash as its members.

January 4 is the scheduled date of the first meeting of the party’s general election manifesto committee, which is led by former Union minister P Chidambaran.

These past few days, Kharge, general secretary K C Venugopal, and former party chief Rahul Gandhi met with state Congress chiefs and other leaders. Although there were extensive talks about forming alliances, the agenda mainly consisted of organisational issues and the plan for the Lok Sabha elections.

Party chiefs, Congress chiefs, and legislative party leaders from the states that the “Bharat Nyay Yatra” will pass through will convene again on January 4. At the meeting, the march’s ultimate route will be decided.

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The detailed route of the yatra will be announced on January 8 while a theme song will be released on January 12.

The sources said the yatris will cover around 120 kilometers a day, including around five to seven km on foot.

Several public meetings and interactive sessions with locals and marginalised groups have been planned during the yatra.

The “Bharat Nyay Yatra” led by Gandhi will start from Manipur in the east on January 14 and conclude in Mumbai in western India in March. It will cover 14 states and 85 districts.

The march will traverse through Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Leaders from other INDIA bloc parties are also expected to join the yatra, though the plans are yet to be finalised.

(Source: PTI)