INDIA front skipped two deadlines to finalize seat-sharing
Reportedly the indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) front has skipped two deadlines to finalise seat-sharing. december 31 was the deadline envisaged by trinamool congress (TMC) chief and West bengal Chief minister (CM) mamata Banerjee. News18 has accessed some information on the two-day national alliance committee formed by the congress for seat-sharing. Sources say the meetings concluded with the belief that the congress should ask for more.Over the past few days, state leaders of the congress have been meeting rahul gandhi and president mallikarjun Kharge. The idea was to get a sense of the ground. The feedback from most states puts the congress at loggerheads with its allies, especially in West bengal (WB), Punjab, delhi and Uttar Pradesh (UP).To begin with, Bengal. TMC leader Kunal Ghosh’s harsh words against the congress have hardened the latter’s resolve to stick to its demand for at least eight seats. Banerjee has publicly made the point that, so far, the congress can win only two seats — Malda and Murshidabad. State congress Chief adhir ranjan chowdhury has, however, told gandhi that with the Left’s vote share going up in the recent state polls, the congress can perform better. It is unlikely that Banerjee will agree to it. Sources say that the report plans to tell other allies that as a national alternative to the BJP, the congress compromising to less seats than them would make the party look weaker vis-a-vis the BJP. This would defeat the purpose of taking on the BJP. Sources say that in the last stage, sonia gandhi and Kharge would speak to the difficult allies to convince them.