Cong leaders call for holding seat-sharing talks with I-N-D-I-A bloc partners

Expressing confidence about the party faring well in the upcoming assembly polls in five states some Congress leaders have called for delaying the seatsharing talks with INDIA bloc partners for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections till November so as to do it from a position of strength sources saidThe call from a section of leaders particularly those from states where the Congress is directly in a contest with some INDIA bloc partners came while the top party leadership pitched for strengthening the Congress as well as the opposition blocSources said several leaders supported the call to strengthen the Congress organisation and the opposition INDIA alliance during the twoday brainstorming session of the Congress Working Committee but they asserted that the party should not rush into seatsharing arrangements with likeminded partiesDuring the twoday parleys Sonia Gandhi called for strengthening the INDIA alliance while Rahul Gandhi said both the Congress party and the opposition bloc should be strengthenedSeveral leaders pointed out that this should not be done at the cost of the Congress the sources saidDuring the extended CWC meet on Sunday the partys state unit chiefs of the four pollbound states gave their reports on preparedness and the road map for winning the pollsDuring the deliberations some leaders expressed apprehensions about AAP leaders continuing their attack and causing hurt to party leaders even when they had stopped doing so sources saidSome Delhi and Punjab leaders including former Union minister Ajay Maken Alka Lamba and Partap Singh Bajwa spoke against the Aam Aadmi Party AAP the sources addedCongress chief Mallikarjun Kharge the sources said assured the state leaders that any talks on seat sharing with other parties would be done only in consultations with state unitsMaken the sources said told the leadership that while they were in favour of the INDIA bloc the Congress should not rush into seatsharing talks and should wait till the results in these five states comeHe called for holding seatsharing talks from a position of strength instead of doing so now as the opposition parties were pushing for it in their interestMaken a former union minister said that AAP leaders were announcing contesting in states where the Congress was in a position to form its government and were attacking Congress leaders He demanded that it should stopPunjab leaders Bajwa and Amrinder Singh Raja Warring did not favour having a tieup with the AAP in their state as their leaders were being targeted sources saidSources add that Punjab PCC chief Raja Warring also raised the point but was told to raise the issue and discuss it separately with the party leadershipSome leaders of the INDIA alliance want that seat sharing should be done at the earliest and Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP and Akhilesh Yadav of the SP have called for doing this by SeptemberendThe opposition parties are working towards putting up one joint candidate against the NDA in every Lok Sabha constituency but there are several obstacles before a final arrangement is made There are differences on seat sharing among parties in several states including Punjab Delhi West Bengal and KeralaThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever