Following a meeting between party president Mallikarjun Kharge and prominent state leaders, sources informed News18 that the Congress is ready to field candidates in 22 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.
The grand old party, which has Hain Taiyyar Hum (We Are Ready) as its campaign motto, sounded the 2024 election trumpet on its 138th foundation day in Nagpur on Friday, the day of the conference.
During the meeting, Kharge was presented with a presentation on the party’s stronghold constituencies by Maharashtra Congress officials, who also addressed the state’s current political situation. Some officials reportedly proposed that the Congress run for 30 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha elections. Another group of leaders reportedly questioned if the party had selected this many candidates.
Subsequently, according to reports, one of the party’s senior officials recommended that the party run for a maximum of 22 seats where it has a strong chance of winning.
News18 was informed by party sources that the topic of seat-sharing with the NCP’s Sharad Pawar group and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena-UBT was also deliberated. Leaders are said to have told Kharge that in the wake of Ajit Pawar’s mutiny in the NCP and Eknath Shinde’s split in the Sena, neither party fully controls their traditional electoral symbols.
Several leaders told Kharge that the Congress would have to make up for its friends on this front since it is the only alliance partner out of the three that can compete using its well-established “hand” emblem. Sources claim that depending on the circumstances in each district, Kharge and the state leaders may consider trading a few seats with the allies.
It is also said that leaders have voiced their disapproval of Sanjay Raut, the head of the Shiv Sena-UBT, publicly declaring that his party wants 23 seats in the Lok Sabha election via seat-sharing. Kharge, meanwhile, cautioned Maharashtra party officials from mentioning the partnership or seat sharing in any of their remarks.
Next week, the Congress high command is expected to meet with the Sharad Pawar group of the NCP and the Shiv Sena-UBT to decide on the seat-sharing arrangement.
The Congress ran for 25 seats in the general elections of 2019 but only took home one seat. While the unified Shiv Sena, which was then in coalition with the BJP, ran for 23 seats and won 18, the NCP had only won four of the 19 seats it had fought.
A number of high-level meetings are scheduled by the Congress as the clock is running down to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and arrangements are being finalized for the party’s “Bharat Nyay Yatra.”
To help with discussions over seat sharing with allies, the party has established a five-member National Alliance Committee. The committee was established last week and is led by prominent Congressman Mukul Wasnik. Members of the committee include Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Salman Khurshid, and Mohan Prakash.
January 4 is set aside as the first meeting of the party’s general election manifesto committee, which is overseen by former Union minister P Chidambaram.
Gandhi’s “Bharat Nyay Yatra” is scheduled to begin on January 14 in Manipur, East India, and end in Mumbai, West India, in March. It will include 85 districts and 14 states.
Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra will all be passed through on the march. Though the details are still being finalized, leaders of the other INDIA bloc parties are also anticipated to participate in the yatra.
