The Congress is set to meet its Maharashtra allied parties in Delhi on Tuesday as seat-sharing talks continue among the opposition’s INDIA alliance parties to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The meeting comes in the backdrop of former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s faction of Shiv Sena declaring that they will contest 23 seats in the state.
The Congress and other regional parties, including the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Trinamool Congress (TMC), and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), formed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) last July to put up a united front in this year’s elections. But seat-sharing remains a big challenge as they try to accommodate each other in common electoral spaces.
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Thackeray’s party, which has lost its tag of being the “original” Shiv Sena, is a part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) along with Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress.
Ahead of the seat-sharing talks, Thackeray-led Shiv Sena gave itself a head start by giving the go-ahead to its probable candidates in 23 seats, which it intends to contest.
“We have staked claim to 23 Lok Sabha seats. We have candidates for all 23 seats and given them the go-ahead,” Sanjay Raut, chief spokesperson of the Shiv Sena (UBT) had told The Indian Express.
When it was in alliance with the BJP in 2019, Shiv Sena (UBT) contested 23 seats and won 18 while the BJP contested 26. However, in the 2022 revolt, 12 of its sitting MPs joined hands with the Shiv Sena led by now Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Meanwhile, the Congress and the AAP, who have been exchanging passive-aggressive words, met on Monday to discuss seat-sharing prospects in Punjab, Delhi and other states. No conclusive announcement was made after the meeting, but they decided to meet again to give a final shape to the arrangement.
Mukul Wasnik and Ashok Gehlot were part of the Congress team while Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak and Delhi ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj attended Monday’s meeting on behalf of the AAP.
The Congress units in Delhi and Punjab are against any tie-up with the AAP, which is in power in both states.
The grand-old party is facing a similar challenge in West Bengal where TMC supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has asserted that her party will go to the polls alone – despite the Trinamool being a key member of the INDIA alliance.
Several other parties within the INDIA alliance have been working to resolve their differences and fight the elections together.