INDIA meeting: No consensus on seat-sharing; first joint rally in poll-bound MP

The Opposition’s 28-party INDIA coalition has decided to hold its first joint rally in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh’s capital, Bhopal, in the first week of October though a formula for seat-sharing arrangement between its constituents for the 2024 Lok Sabha battle still remains elusive.

The INDIA bloc’s apex decision-making body, the coordination committee, held its first meeting in Delhi on Wednesday (September 13). The three-hour-long discussions that took place at the residence of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar could not arrive at a consensus on the seat-sharing formula and the 12 parties represented at the meeting decided that at least the preliminary talks on the issue must be held at the state level since contours of an electoral alliance will differ from one state to another.

Seat-sharing talks to be completed by Oct 15

Sources told The Federal that the 12 coordination committee members present at the meeting – the only absentee was Trinamool Congress’s Abhishek Banerjee as he had been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate for questioning in Kolkata earlier in the day – agreed that while drawing a broad framework for seat-sharing must be left to state leaders of the constituent parties, the top leadership of each outfit should step in to resolve any stalemate.

Committee member and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah suggested that Lok Sabha seats presently held by different INDIA bloc parties must be excluded from the discussions on seat-sharing “unless a party wishes to surrender the seat to an ally”. Abdullah proposed that the focus must be on dividing those constituencies among INDIA allies which are currently held by the BJP, its allies or outfits that are part of neither coalition – NDA or INDIA.

The panel’s members from parties such as the AAP, JD (U), SP and RJD advised that a bulk of the seat-sharing discussions must be completed by October 15. However, following reservations expressed by Pawar and Congress nominee KC Venugopal against setting a deadline, the coordination committee chose to state in its joint statement that a decision on seat-sharing will be taken by member parties “at the earliest”. Sources said that though an official deadline for completing the discussions was not decided upon, there was a “broad consensus” that barring some seats where more than one party has a strong claim, the exercise for dividing a majority of the constituencies among the allies “should be completed by October end”.

Pawar is learnt to have stressed on the need for all constituents to “be realistic” in demanding a share of the seats and “not turn the dialogue into a prestige issue” as the goal of the alliance is to “win and not just contest” the maximum number of seats against the BJP. The NCP supremo, sources said, cited the example of Maharashtra and said that his party has already been having cordial informal discussions with allies, Congress and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena in which “winnability factor” has been given primacy in deciding which constituency should be contested by an ally.

Chaddha's suggestion on seat-sharing

Though Wednesday’s discussions placed a premium on each party being pragmatic in seeking a share of the seats, sources told The Federal that a suggestion made strongly by AAP’s Raghav Chaddha and reiterated by the CPI’s D. Raja could further complicate the already tricky seat-sharing discussions.

Until now, the understanding among constituents of the INDIA coalition had been that their seat-sharing arrangement must be exclusively for the Lok Sabha polls as several of the bloc’s members are pitted against each other electorally at the state level. On Wednesday though, Chaddha left some members, particularly Congress’s Venugopal, surprised when he insisted that the seat-sharing arrangement must also extend to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where Assembly polls are due two months from now.

A coordination committee member, however, said the blame for giving Chaddha a chance to seek seat-sharing for Assembly polls too rests with Venugopal. Chaddha is learnt to have taken his cue from Venugopal who mentioned that the Congress was in the process of finalising a seat-sharing arrangement with Left Front constituents for the Telangana polls, which will coincide with Assembly elections in MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram. The CPI’s Raja concurred with Venugopal and took the chance to suggest that the INDIA coalition must have state-wise alliances for Assembly polls too.

Sources said while Raja’s insistence for a seat-sharing arrangement for Assembly polls was not a matter of concern as he was merely alluding to an ongoing negotiation, Chaddha’s call for a similar exercise in MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan is bound to unsettle the Congress. The Congress is determined to contest the polls in these three states on its own.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has announced plans to field candidates in MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan – some candidates have also been declared – though his party has no electoral presence in these states. Congress sources told The Federal that though the party’s alliance talks with the Left Front for the Telangana polls are a reality, there is “no question of sharing electoral space with AAP in MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan”.

By delegating talks on seat-sharing to the state leaders of various constituent parties, the INDIA bloc seems to have bought some additional time to sort out an obviously tricky issue. However, building consensus on a seat-sharing arrangement isn’t the only puzzle that the alliance needs to sort out.

The coordination committee meeting also gave a glimpse of another potentially problematic area among the allies. The joint statement released by the committee following the discussions at Pawar’s residence reiterated a stand that the coalition had taken during its second dialogue in Bangalore but failed to weave into the political resolution that was passed at the bloc’s Mumbai conclave on September 1. This was with regard to the bloc’s push for a Caste Census.

The coordination committee’s joint statement released by Venugopal said, “The parties present in the meeting agreed to take up the issue of Caste Census”. The formulation, with its stress on “the parties present in the meeting” betrayed the lack of consensus on the issue. As reported by The Federal earlier, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had opposed demands by the RJD, JD (U), SP, DMK and Left parties to include the demand for a Caste Census in the resolution that the INDIA bloc had adopted in Mumbai.

With Abhishek Banerjee, the Trinamool’s nominee on the coordination committee, absent from Wednesday’s meeting, the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Sanjay Jha of the JD (U), Javed Ali Khan of the SP, Raja and the DMK’s TR Baalu stressed that the demand for a Caste Census must be reiterated by the group. After Pawar and Venugopal pointed out that Banerjee had strongly opposed the mention of Caste Census in the Mumbai resolution – though Pawar also mentioned that the issue was included in the coalition’s joint statement released in Bangalore – it was decided that the position taken on the matter by the coordination committee would be qualified with the rider “parties present at the meeting”. It was also decided that senior leaders from the INDIA bloc who are backing a Caste Census will have a conversation with Mamata Banerjee on the subject and implore her to come on board with the demand.

Boycotting pro-BJP news anchors

The issue on which there seemed to be “absolute unanimity” at Wednesday’s meeting, though, was regarding a suggestion made by the INDIA bloc’s sub-group on media strategy. The sub-group had suggested that leaders of the alliance must boycott news debates hosted by anchors known for their pro-BJP stance. Accordingly, the joint statement issued by the coordination committee said that the panel had “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”.

Sources said that though the ‘boycott’ was directed at anchors of Hindi and English national news channels, regional outfits such as the SP, Shiv Sena (UBT), RJD and the JD (U) suggested that the sub-group on media must also analyse content on regional news channels and take inputs from regional parties to prepare a similar list of anchors at the state-level. “The content on regional news channels is just as polarising and divisive as it is on national channels but it is even more dangerous because a large number of people in small towns and villages follow regional language channels. It is a good step to boycott national channels for spreading hate and BJP propaganda but we should adopt the same strategy with regional channels also,” a coordination committee member from one of the regional parties told The Federal.