As per an India Today report, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has offered 2 Lok Sabha seats to its I.N.D.I.A. bloc ally Congress party in West Bengal. Notably, it will be a slight climb down from TMC side after earlier stating that they want to fight on all 42 seats in Bengal. Incidentally, Congress party won on 2 seats from Bengal during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
As per the news sources, since Mamata Banerjee-led TMC is the dominant player in West Bengal, they think they should be deciding which alliance partner gets how many seats to contest.
Meanwhile, TMC has also reportedly advocated for Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to take the place of I.N.D.I.A. bloc’s convenor instead of Bihar CM and JDU supremo Nitish Kumar. While there is nothing against Nitish Kumar from TMC side, they feel that Mr. Kharge will make a better convenor. Notably, a few days ago, there were reports that I.N.D.I.A. block will make Mallikarjun Kharge their PM candidate. Interestingly, a few days back, some supporters of TMC’s Mamata Banerjee had started a website projecting her as the next PM.
I.N.D.I.A. bloc, cobbled together to beat Narendra Modi-led NDA during the Lok Sabha elections, wanted to finalise seat-sharing and PM face at the earliest. However, with elections set to start in April of this year, they have left these decisions to the very last stage.
It is not just Bengal where the opposition alliance is going to face problems with seat sharing. In Punjab, both Congress and AAP, I.N.D.I.A. bloc allies, have announced repeatedly that they will contest all the seats in the state, leaving the alliance in jeopardy. Meanwhile, in the key state Maharashtra, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) and Congress are again miles apart when it comes to agreement on seat sharing.
There is added complication of states like Kerala, where Congress has been fighting CPM for a long time, but now that they are both part of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, how will they resolve their long standing differences.
Another key ally, Samajwadi Party, and its supremo Akhilesh Yadav, are already upset with Congress over their treatment during the recently held Madhya Pradesh elections where Congress totally sidelined SP.
Among all these complications, it will be interesting to see how Congress manages to keep all these parties happy, and even its own cadre happy after accepting 2 seats in Bengal and 0 seats in Punjab and Delhi.