INDIA bloc faces Trinamool Congress test over chairperson, convenor posts

The Opposition INDIA bloc is struggling to reach a consensus over appointing the alliance’s chairperson and convenor.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC), with support from some leaders within the Congress, has suggested that Sonia Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee should be the 28-party alliance’s chairperson and convenor, instead of Mallikarjun Kharge and Nitish Kumar, respectively.

According to sources in the Congress and other constituents of the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the discussions on seat sharing have been smoother than expected, barring in West Bengal and Punjab, but achieving a consensus on appointing the bloc’s chairperson and convenor has become more contentious.

On Thursday, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad spoke with Banerjee, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Uddhav Thackeray to canvass support for appointing Kumar as INDIA bloc’s convenor. Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) indicated its impatience with the delay in announcing the name of its leader as the bloc’s convener by announcing its Lok Sabha candidate from Arunachal Pradesh (West) on Wednesday.

However, the Trinamool Congress has suggested that Banerjee had better credentials than Kumar. A section within the Congress agrees with the view and believes Sonia Gandhi, currently the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, should be the alliance’s chairperson instead of Congress president Kharge and Banerjee should be its convenor. The Left parties are not amenable to Banerjee’s appointment as convenor and back Kumar. Most other allies are willing to agree to Kumar as the convenor.

Meanwhile, the discussions on seat sharing between the constituents are on. After the jolt it received in the recent Assembly polls, the Congress went back to the drawing board to identify 255 seats that it will contest in the Lok Sabha polls, instead of the 421 it did in 2019, of which it could win only 52.

Of these 255, the Congress would be willing to concede even further to accommodate not just its current INDIA allies but also potential ones, such as the Bharatiya Adivasi Party, which won three seats in Rajasthan and one in Madhya Pradesh in the Assembly polls. The INDIA bloc is looking at such alliance partners as Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi in Maharashtra. Ambedkar met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar earlier this week.

The Congress’ central leadership has asked its state units to temper their demands in states with strong regional parties, such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal. The likelihood of an alliance between the Congress and AAP has receded, with the Congress state unit resisting it. Sources said the two would reach a seat adjustment in Delhi.

Committee for simultaneous polls invites suggestions 

The high-level committee on ‘one nation, one election’ led by former president Ram Nath Kovind has invited suggestions from the public “for making appropriate changes in the existing legal administrative framework to enable simultaneous elections in the country”. In a public notice published on Friday, the committee invited members of the general public to send suggestions in writing through its website, onoe.gov.in, or via email at sc-hlc@gov.in.