Amid speculation over opposition unity within the INDIA bloc, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar took a dig at the Congress for the delay in preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Nitish said the Congress was given the “leading role” in the alliance, but there has not been “much progress on that front” as the party is currently focused on the five state assembly polls.
Speaking at a CPI rally in Patna on Thursday, Nitish said: "We have been speaking to them... pushing them forward in INDIA alliance. But, of late, there has not been much progress on that front.
"We agreed to assign Congress the leading role. But it appears they will call the next meeting only after they are through with the state elections," the JD(U) leader who played a pivotal role in bringing the alliance together said. Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram will go to polls later this month.
The first meeting of the alliance was held in Patna in June. The INDIA bloc parties met for the second time on August 31 in Mumbai, after which no new meeting has been announced. The opposition unity has taken a beating in the poll-bound states as regional parties clashed with the Congress over seat sharing. In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress and Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, which is part of the INDIA bloc, were engaged in a war of words after the latter fielded its own candidates. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Nitish's JD(U) also have candidates in the fray.
Downplaying the rumours of a rift, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary on Wednesday said they will be part of the alliance for the Lok Sabha elections.
Though the parties had decided at the coordination committee meeting earlier that they would try for seat sharing arrangements for the state polls as well, the Congress does not seem too keen to reduce its number of seats in the Hindi heartland.
Addressing the issue, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said earlier in October that every state has different election issues, and added that the seat-sharing formula will be decided after state polls. According to reports, the Congress hopes to have more elbow room to negotiate seats if the party performs well in the upcoming assembly polls.
