Congress' Sacrifice For INDIA: Might Contest On Less Than 400 Seats In LS 2024 To Give Space To Regional Parties

After the opposition meeting in Bengaluru on 17-18 July, the Congress party seems to be bending over backwards in order to run its newly named alliance INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance).

The first such instance was seen in its efforts to invite West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to Bengaluru and share the credit of the alliance name INDIA with her. More such instances will come to light once the seat-sharing discussion starts.

Notably, of the 25 parties that are with the Congress, nine are those who were not along with it in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. These are:

Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Apna Dal (Kamerawadi), Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), People's Democratic Party (PDP), Manithaneya Makkal Katchi (MMK) and All India Forward Bloc (AIFB).

While some of the parties have also left since 2019, this is the largest Congress-led alliance in recent decades if we go by the number of parties. So it is natural for Congress to contest on a lesser number of seats this time.

A senior Congress leader told Dainik Bhaskar that the party might contest on just 370 seats. This will be the lowest count for the grand-old party.

The bigger parties that are part of the INDIA group hold credit for reducing Congress' electoral space, especially those parties who are governing a state.

Like, Mamata Banerjee has already said that she will support Congress only in those regions where it is strong and expects the same in return from Congress for other parties.

This clearly means that she is in no mood to let Congress contest more than half a dozen of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.

In the 2019 elections, TMC bagged 22 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress won 18 and two seats respectively.

Overall, Congress was the second-largest party in the nation with 52 seats, while Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam (DMK) was third with 24 seats, and YSR Congress and TMC tied for the number four position with 22 seats.

However, Congress was a junior partner in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government with Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) calling the cards and the same situation is likely to remain in Maharashtra seat sharing.

Meanwhile, AAP, which didn't have a single MP in Lok Sabha after Bhagwant Mann resigned to become Punjab CM has sent its lone MP Sushil Kumar Rinku to Lok Sabha through Jalandhar by-polls.

However, its low tally doesn't matter much as it is the ruling party in Punjab and Delhi and hence holds a prominent bargaining position for the seats.

Similarly, Janata Dal (United) [JD(U)] and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), who are currently ruling Bihar in a coalition, are also part of the INDIA and might not recede to give space to the Congress in the state.

In the 2019 elections, JD(U) won 16 of the 40 seats as part of the NDA, while the other allies BJP and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) won 17 and six seats respectively. Congress bagged just one seat.

RJD couldn't win a single seat but emerged as the single largest party in the 2020 Bihar assembly elections which keeps its position prominent.

Similar is the case with Akhilesh Yadav-led SP which has won just five Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 elections but is currently the largest opposition party in Uttar Pradesh with more than one-fourth of the MLAs.

Congress could one just one Lok Sabha seat in 2019 and two seats in the 2022 assembly elections which is even less than SP-ally RLD. The Jayant-Chaudhary-led party sent eight MLAs to the UP assembly.

This puts Congress in a very difficult position for it is the largest party in INDIA and has to show its large-heartedness by making compromises.

However, it is not large enough to be able to carry the weight of these compromises. Consequently, Congress will shrink more.