INDIA to start seat-sharing talks in states sans uniform formula; caste census high on agenda

The choice of Bhopal as the venue of the bloc’s first rally is interesting given that the parties have not worked out any seat-sharing arrangement for MP so far.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), one of the alliance members, has already announced its first list of ten candidates for the MP Assembly polls. It is to be seen whether the Congress – a dominant player in MP which is fighting a “do-or-die” battle in a bid to oust the BJP from power – will agree to offer some seats to the AAP, which despite its virtual non-existence in the state is keen to make inroads there. In fact, the situation is the same in another poll-bound state, Chhattisgarh, where the Congress is the incumbent party.

Leaders of various INDIA constituents have been arguing that the formula for sharing seats could differ from state to state depending on its political dynamics, which would however be largely based on the performance of the parties in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

At the first meeting of the grouping’s coordination committee Wednesday, held at NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s residence in Delhi, National Conference’s Omar Abdullah said there should not be any discussion on seats which are already being held by any member of the alliance.

“One of the things that I have proposed, which is something that we are going to discuss, is that seats that are already held by members of the INDIA bloc should not be open for discussion. We should be discussing those seats that are held by either the BJP, NDA or parties that are not part of either of those alliances. The seats that are already held by INDIA members…those shouldn’t come on the discussion table,” Abdullah said after the meeting attended by leaders of 12 parties.

“The coordination committee decided to start the process for determining seat-sharing. It was decided that the member parties will hold the talks and decide at the earliest,” a joint statement issued by the parties after the meeting said. Elaborating, CPI general secretary D Raja said the decision was to start negotiations for seat-sharing “at the state level” for the forthcoming elections to the “Assembly as well as Parliament”. This was interesting, since the parties have so far been suggesting that their seat-sharing would be for the Lok Sabha elections.

The parties want to conclude their seat-sharing arrangement by October-end.

Senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee, a member of the coordination committee, did not attend the meeting since he had to appear before the ED for questioning in a case in Kolkata.

The parties, however, decided to take up the demand for the caste census in the coming days as a possible counter to the BJP’s Hindutva narrative. The TMC had expressed some reservations on the issue at the alliance’s Mumbai meeting. The joint statement issued Wednesday said “the parties present in the meeting” agreed to take up the caste census issue. Asked about the TMC’s stand over the demand, senior Congress leader K C Venugopal said, “No, those who are present here… decide these things. We are going to talk to them (TMC).”

The coordination panel noted Abhishek’s absence, with its joint statement saying he “could not attend the meeting due to a summons by the Enforcement Directorate, arising out of the vendetta politics of BJP.”

The TMC had been nudging the alliance leaders to come out with a condemnation of Abhishek’s questioning.

The parties also decided to hold a series of joint public meetings across the country. The Bhopal meeting, the leaders said, would focus on the issues of “rising prices, unemployment and corruption of the BJP government”.

Then there was another decision which surprised many leaders of the Congress. The statement said the “coordination committee authorised the sub-group on media to decide upon the names of the anchors on whose shows none of the INDIA parties will send their representatives”.

At its Mumbai conclave, the INDIA bloc had constituted its coordination, election strategy and campaign committees besides setting up separate working groups for media, social media and research.

The meeting was attended by Venugopal, Sharad Pawar, DMK’s T R Baalu, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, Jharkhand CM and JMM leader Hemant Soren, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut, JD(U)’s Sanjay Jha, AAP’s Raghav Chadha, Raja, Abdullah, PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti and Samajwadi Party’s Javed Ali Khan.