Congress, SP left standing at talks table over seats in Madhya Pradesh

With Shivraj taking potshots at the two key INDIA constituents saying 'Dilli me dosti aur MP me kushti', the fault lines are on the mat. The bloc now finds its survival in a half-Nelson hold

An incipient effort to project the Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc as a cohesive anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) front before the 2024 Lok Sabha (LS) polls came up short after seat-sharing negotiations between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) for the November Madhya Pradesh (MP) polls broke down for several reasons.

Indeed, the talks never progressed beyond a few phone conversations between the SP’s National President, Akhilesh Yadav, and Kamal Nath, the Congress MP chief, and Digvijaya Singh, the former chief minister, along with a round of discussions between the two and the SP’s MP representatives.

“The Congress