Congress to start seat-sharing talks with allies next week

NEW DELHI: Party leaders from the states on Friday and Saturday will meet with Congress’s National Alliance Committee, which was established to facilitate seat-sharing negotiations with allies. The formal negotiations with the allies will begin next week once the committee submits a report to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge.

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.

According to sources, Kharge held an interaction with the Congress general secretaries in-charge of all states after the rally at Nagpur on Thursday evening and discussed the upcoming polls and organisational issues.

The five-member National Alliance Committee of the Congress is scheduled to hold meetings with leaders from the states where the party.

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.

The first meeting of the party’s manifesto committee for the general election, headed by former Union minister P Chidambaran, is scheduled to be held on January 4.

Another meeting will be held on January 4 with party leaders, including Congress chiefs and legislative party leaders from the states through which the “Bharat Nyay Yatra” will pass. The final route of the march will be decided at the meeting.

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