Seat distribution in India alliance becomes biggest challenge for Congress

Congress, the country’s oldest party and the party that has been ruling the country for the longest time, is probably going through its worst phase politically, if it is said then it would be no exaggeration. Congress, which has given the highest number of Prime Ministers to the country, today does not have enough MPs in the Lok Sabha to officially get the status of opposition party. After losing the government in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in the recent assembly elections, the condition of Congress has become such that in Uttar Pradesh, SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav, who is already attacking Congress, has intensified his attacks, while the coordination of seats with Congress has become difficult. Despite being in talks and joining the opposition alliance, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal went to Gujarat and announced the name of his candidate from the stage itself. The condition of the Congress can be gauged from the fact that Nitish Kumar, who had prepared all the regional parties to come together with the Congress after putting aside their differences, is now the same Nitish Kumar’s party JDU is strongly criticizing the Congress. Trinamool Congress in West Bengal is also upset with Adhir Ranjan Choudhary’s statement on President’s rule.

Today the situation has become such that Lalu Yadav’s RJD and Nitish Kumar’s JDU are not ready to give more Lok Sabha seats to Congress to fight in Bihar and the same attitude of Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. Is. At the same time, the Aam Aadmi Party does not want to limit its agreement with the Congress only to Delhi, but reports are even coming out that the Aam Aadmi Party has won so many seats from the Congress in some other states including Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat. A demand has been made which is absolutely impossible for the Congress to fulfill. Even in Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray are pressurizing Congress to give more seats despite the complete disintegration of their respective parties.

It is being said that, if Congress accepts the demands of all its allies, then it may not have even 200 Lok Sabha seats left to contest whereas Congress had contested 421 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections of 2019.

However, regional parties also have their own problems. Many parties including Trinamool Congress of West Bengal, NCP of Maharashtra, RLD of Uttar Pradesh and PDP of Jammu and Kashmir were born out of Congress and these parties have become strong only by snatching the vote bank of Congress, while the common man There are many parties like Party, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal which have become strong only by eliminating the existence of Congress and all such parties are also afraid that they will suffer due to the strengthening of Congress, hence they are worried about the weakness of Congress. They want to take advantage of this and make a complete bargain and this is the situation when all these regional parties know very well that none of them is capable of giving a tough competition to the BJP without the support of the Congress. Therefore, it is being said that seat distribution in the opposition alliance has become the biggest challenge for the Congress because its regional allies are more interested in its weakening.

-Santosh Pathak

(The author is a senior journalist and columnist.)