INDIA Allies Uneasy with Congress's Yatra Focus as Crucial Seat-sharing Issue Is Still 'Warming The Bench'

The Congress is excited about the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra beginning on January 14 from Manipur to Mumbai. The party hopes it rejuvenates its cadre which has been demoralised by three recent losses in state elections. But this excitement is not shared by its allies in the INDIA front. Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav has been the first to air a view that has many takers in the alliance. He said, “Before the start of the Congress party’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, seat-sharing of the INDIA bloc must be done in UP.”

This is exactly the point raised by many others like Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and Trinamool Congress (TMC). Significantly, the yatra crosses through many states where seat-sharing talks are to take place, like Bihar, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra. The way the places have been marked plus the fact that the Congress has announced coordinators for all the Lok Sabha seats has raised doubts in the mind of one of its alliance partners. They feel that the Congress has a plan, which it is not sharing.

But the Congress is in a hurry. It wants to stitch up most of the seat-sharing talks before the 14th as after that most of its top leaders will be busy with the yatra, which is clearly Rahul Gandhi-centric. The urgency is evident as Congress’s national alliance committee headed by Mukul Wasnik has been fixing meetings with INDIA partners like JD(U) and Aam Aadmi Party. Not that these talks have yielded much, but the reason is clearly that, for the Congress, the yatra is the priority. This has irked some of the allies as they feel that the yatra should also have been an “alliance jodo” effort. Or that it would have been good optics if the alliance partners had been part of this yatra officially and it was not just a Congress programme.

Jairam Ramesh has, however, clarified that “wherever the yatra crosses through a state where allies are present, the invitation has been given to them to join”. This is what happened during the first phase of the yatra when the NCP, for example, had joined.

The other annoyance for the allies is that they want seat-sharing talks to begin and be finalised when the auspicious period begins as per the Hindu calendar on January 14. Akhilesh Yadav has said this openly.

But with the Congress going ahead with the talks, the allies see this as yet another example of the Congress trying to be the big brother.