Congress and a few other parties have also identified 400 parliamentary seats out of the total 543 where a one-on-one fight with BJP is possible, a senior Congress functionary said. The INDIA bloc is in no hurry to appoint a convener, but an 11-member coordination committee has been proposed, he said.
The two-day opposition bloc meeting began at a luxury hotel with an informal meeting on Thursday, followed by a dinner hosted by Uddhav Thackeray. The formal discussions will take place on Friday morning, and a logo of the alliance will be unveiled. This is the third meeting of the bloc after one in Patna in June and another in Bengaluru in July. Sixty-three representatives from 28 political parties will attend the meeting.If the Congress functionary is to be believed, the general view is that any discussion on a seat-sharing formula will be a long-drawn exercise. “Senior leaders of the INDIA bloc will discuss the strategy to ensure the defeat of NDA nominees in the Lok Sabha polls, and the consensus is that decisions on seat-sharing should be taken at the state-level committees. We have 28 parties and 63 leaders. They will work out an action plan, take decisions and bring these to the notice of the national-level coordination committee, which will then take a final call. Ultimately, elective merit will be the main criterion for selecting a candidate,” the leader said.
On straight contests, the leader said, “We have proposed that there should be one-on-one fights on 400 seats, and it should not be difficult for us to win enough seats there. On the remaining 143 seats, contests are inevitable. Most of these 143 seats are in Andhra Pradesh, UP and Orissa. From our data, we can see that it will not be smooth wresting these seats from BJP or its partners.”
The leader suggested that the issue of convener might be skirted by the bloc for the moment. “The moment someone is appointed as convener, there would be talk on that s/he would be the PM candidate. We have enough time to select a PM candidate, so it is felt that a coordination committee will be good as a decision-making body, and it will take decisions collectively,” the Congress functionary said.
The agenda for the alliance, the functionary pointed out, would be drafted in such a manner as to be acceptable to all parties given their divergent views and ideologies. “We will concentrate on key issues facing people at the grassroots level. Our priority will be to tackle the increasing prices of essential commodities, unemployment, hate speeches, the agrarian crisis and the situation in public sector undertakings,” the leader said.
NCP president Sharad Pawar had indicated on Thursday that a decision on seat distribution would be entrusted to state-level committees, which would be formed after the two-day meeting of the INDIA bloc.
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