Congress leadership does not want to antagonise regional partners as it is said to be wary of optics, even as state party leaders call for drawing the line.
From Bihar to Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu to Uttar Pradesh, the Opposition INDIA bloc’s partners have either managed to push the Congress to the backfoot in seat sharing negotiations for the Lok Sabha elections, or are trying to do so.
Although upset at being pushed around, the Congress is left with few options, as it is a minor player in some of these states, and is heavily dependent on the bigger regional players.
It was no different in Bihar, where the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) announced its seat sharing formula for the state’s 40 seats Friday. Here too, the Congress did not get some of the seats it was asking for. The biggest setback was the RJD’s denial of the Purnia seat to the party. The Congress, which contested the seat as part of the RJD-led alliance in 2019, had sought the seat again for former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who recently merged his Jan Adhikar Party with the Congress amid fanfare.
Let alone Purnia, the RJD did not even concede Supaul, which was among the seats that Pappu Yadav had on his wishlist as replacement for Purnia. Yadav’s wife and AICC secretary Ranjeet Ranjan had represented the Supaul seat twice in the past — in 2004 and 2014. She was in the fray in 2019 as well.
Then there was Begusarai, where Kanhaiya Kumar was in the fray in 2019 as the CPI candidate. The Congress hoped to get the seat for Kumar, who joined the party in 2021, but the RJD gave it to the CPI once again. The RJD also denied the Congress the Aurangabad seat, where it wanted to field former governor and senior leader Nikhil Kumar. In 2019, the RJD had given the seat to Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha, which is now with the BJP.
The only saving grace for the Congress was that after much hard-nosed negotiations, the RJD agreed to give it nine seats. The party is of course upset, but did not want to push the RJD beyond a point.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK forced the Congress to change three of its seats, which it had won in 2019 as part of a DMK-led alliance. Sources said the DMK initially wanted to change 4-5 of the Congress’s 2019 seats and candidates. After much negotiations, the Congress agreed to Tirunelveli, Cuddalore and Mayiladuthurai, as replacement for Theni, Arani and Tiruchirappalli, of which it had won Arani and Tiruchirappalli in 2019.
With the DMK taking away Arani, the Congress had to shift its sitting MP M K Vishnu Prasad to Cuddalore. The swap also meant the party could not field its former PCC president Su Thirunavukkarasar from Tiruchirappalli, which has now gone to the MDMK. Sources said there was pressure on the Congress to either swap the Karur seat, or change its candidate — sitting MP and Team Rahul member Jothi Mani — but the party did not concede.
In Maharashtra, the Congress is still locked in a tussle with the ShivSena (UBT) and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar). Neither of the regional partners are willing to concede at least four of the seats the Congress is asking for — Sangli, Bhiwandi, Mumabai South Central and Mumbai North West.
In fact, the Shiv Sena (UBT) has already named its candidates for Sangli and Mumbai South Central, upsetting the Congress. Unlike in Tamil Nadu and Bihar, the Congress is not a marginal player in Maharashtra, but the party’s central leadership is wary of annoying the regional partners in order to keep the INDIA bloc united, although state leaders are insisting that the party draw a firm line.
“The Congress central leadership has to be firm in protecting the interests of the party in the states. But the central leadership does not want to antagonise the regional parties as it is wary of the optics. If we push too hard, these parties would say that as the national party and the main opposition party, we are not showing a big heart. The expectation is that we have to make all the compromises. We may be marginal players in Tamil Nadu and Bihar, but that’s not the case in Maharashtra,” a party leader said.
In UP too, the Congress was pushed to the sidelines by the SP. It first unilaterally announced that seat sharing had been finalised, and that the Congress would be contesting 11 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The SP then went ahead and announced candidates in many seats that the Congress was seeking. It later raised the offer to 17 seats after the RLD left the INDIA bloc. But the Congress still did not get some of the seats it had sought — including Farrukhabad, Bhadohi, Lakhimpur Kheri, Shravasti and Jalaun — some of which the party had won in 2009.
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CREDIT: -Indian Express
