11 leaders of the panel were present in the meeting which was overshadowed by the row over Udhayanidhi Stalin's remark on Sanatana Dharma.
An image from the meeting of Opposition bloc INDIA. (X)
In a bid to tackle the tricky issue of seat-sharing among various parties, the Coordination Committee of the Opposition bloc INDIA held its first meeting at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on Wednesday, 13 September.
Eleven leaders of the 14-member panel of the Opposition were present at the meeting which was held under the shadow of a row over DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin’s remarks on the Sanatana Dharma.
Apart from the seat-sharing formulae for different states, the meeting was also expected to discuss a broad campaign strategy for the alliance.
The leaders present at the meeting were: NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Congress’ KC Venugopal, CPI’s D Raja, Samajwadi Party’s Jawed Ali Khan, DMK’s TR Baalu, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, Aam Aadmi Party MP Raghav Chadha, JD(U)’s Sanjay Jha, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti, and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut.
Three members of the panel, including Jharkhan Mukto Morcha leader Hemant Soren, and Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Abhishek Banerjee could not attend the meeting.
According to sources who spoke to PTI, the leaders of several Opposition parties have sought an early seat-sharing formula to be worked out to ensure that a joint Opposition candidate was put up against BJP candidates in as many Lok Sabha seats as possible.
However, several leaders said that the parties have to “shed their egos” and “vested interests” in arriving at such a formula.
While no decision has been taken on the criteria, it is likely to be based on the performance of parties on a particular seat in recent polls.
A source aware of the details told the news agency that the issue of seat-sharing would be discussed, even though it may not be finalised during this meeting.
The leaders will also lay a broad outlay of the election campaign for taking on the BJP, the sources said.
Abhishek Banerjee of TMC, who was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate to appear before it on the same day, did not attend the meeting.
The CPI(M) has not yet nominated any member to the committee. A decision on who will represent CPI(M) will be taken at its Politburo meeting scheduled on 16-17 September.
At the first meeting of the Opposition bloc in Patna in June, it was decided that the strongest candidate from each seat would be picked for the Lok Sabha polls.
The resolution issued on 1 September, after the third meeting of the bloc in Mumbai, said the parties would contest polls together “as far as possible”, and that seat-sharing arrangements in different states would be “initiated immediately” and concluded “at the earliest”.
The clause, “as far as possible” reflected a realistic approach since the alliance comprised political parties that were in conflict with each other in hundreds of seats across the country.
According to Opposition leaders, while states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Bihar are sorted, they face challenging negotiations for Delhi, Punjab, and West Bengal.
The meeting will also focus on finalising campaigns and rallies to be held in the coming days.
Leaders will also look at the decisions taken in meetings of the different sub-groups like the campaign committee, working group on media, research, and social media sub-groups.
The Mumbai conclave — the third since June — also saw the INDIA bloc’s first concrete step towards coordinated organisation and effort to work together by forming committees and working groups comprising leaders from all prominent alliance partners.
INDIA bloc said the seat-sharing arrangements would be concluded at the earliest in the spirit of “give-and-take”.
The alliance adopted a resolution to this effect and said its theme for the elections would be “Judega Bharat, Jeetega India, (Bharat will unite, India will win)”.
The BJP slammed the INDIA bloc meeting as a get-together of an “anti-Hindu coordination committee” and cited corruption cases against their leaders, as it kept the heat on the opposition over a slew of issues including remarks on the Sanatan Dharma.
While Union minister Anurag Thakur said leaders of all these Opposition parties were facing corruption cases and attacked Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for not speaking on “insults” to the Sanatan Dharma, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged that the INDIA bloc’s agenda was to finish off Hinduism.
Launching a broadside at former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Patra, while taking her maiden name Antonia Maino, claimed that she has for long been behind the “conspiracy to target Hinduism”.
Rahul Gandhi had compared the banned Islamist organisation Muslim Brotherhood to Hindutva and called Hindu extremism a bigger threat to India than Islamic terror outfits, he said.
Like the famous suspense book “Murder, She Wrote”, she has penned “a book: Murder of Hinduism, She Wrote”, Patra alleged in a no-holds-barred attack at the Congress leaders at a press conference.
In a swipe at the INDIA bloc, Thakur told reporters, “All of them are people facing corruption and scam charges. Someone is on bail and someone has been to jail. People know them all. Changing the name won’t help. No one has insulted Baba Saheb Ambedkar more than the Congress party.”
He added: “The Constitution does not allow anyone to harm anyone’s faith. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have not spoken anything about the insults to the Sanatana Dharma.”
“Why are they and their Congress party silent? They talk about saving the Indian Constitution on foreign soil but their party and their allies here only talk about tarnishing our Constitution. Sonia and Rahul must answer this,” he demanded.
(With PTI inputs)
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