Congress to take a hard look at alliances during Chintan Shivir

New Delhi: The Congress will take a hard look at the alliances during the three-day Chintan Shivir in Udaipur where over 400 party leaders will brainstorm to prepare a broad strategy for the 2024 national elections.

The existing allies of the Congress are Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in Jharkhand and DMK in Tamil Nadu. Party insiders said alliances with like-minded parties would be needed for the Congress to forge an anti-BJP front at the national level ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls but the road ahead may not be a smooth one.

“The Congress is the natural leader of any national opposition alliance. This issue and many others will be discussed at the Chintan Shivir. We will revive the party and overcome all challenges,” a senior AICC functionary said on condition of anonymity. A key challenge, said party insiders, is that in several states the Congress pitches itself directly against the strong regional player and working out a Lok Sabha seat sharing formula with them may be easier said than done.

In this line, certain states are a strict no-no. For instance in Telangana, the Congress sees the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi as its main rival. In West Bengal, the grand old party is pitched against the ruling Trinamool Congress while in Punjab and Delhi, the Congress fights directly with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, said party insiders.

Similarly, in Uttar Pradesh, the regional players like Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party will have their own calculations before they decide to tie up with the Congress, which has a very limited presence there, a senior Congress leader said. The SP had a pact with the Congress in the 2017 assembly polls but the alliance did not work out.

In 2022, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav refused to have an alliance with the grand old party. The Congress offered an alliance to Mayawati and even assured her of the chief ministerial post but the BSP chief did not agree. Given that the SP has emerged as the principal opposition in UP and will directly challenge the ruling BJP in 2024, it remains to be seen whether Akhilesh Yadav would be willing to have an alliance with the Congress for the next Lok Sabha polls, said Congress strategists.

The Congress had an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka in 2018 but the two partners parted ways in 2019 after the coalition government fell. Now, the Congress will fight the 2023 Karnataka assembly elections alone.