NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who arrived in New Delhi after marathon talks with party leaders in Mumbai on poll preparations, said Congress has to take the initiative for the seat-sharing talks.He told reporters that "instead of wasting time in delaying the issue, let us accept the number (of seats) as last time".
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Wednesday announced a three-member committee headed by state secretary N Varadarajan to discuss seat-sharing with its new ally All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Taml Nadu.
Amid reports that he is likely to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi soon to thrash out the contentious seat-sharing issue, Yadav said "I have complete faith that we will arrive at a settlement with the Congress very soon."
The Bharatiya Janata Party began seat-sharing negotiations with its National Democratic Alliance allies in seven states so that it can finalise its candidates soon. Three senior leaders have been empowered to conduct the negotiations: M Venkaiah Naidu in Maharashtra, Assam and Orissa, Arun Jaitley in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and Sushma Swaraj in Punjab and Haryana.
After four rounds of negotiations, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party have agreed to contest from 40-41 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra while a decision on the remaining eight seats will be taken soon. The two parties agreed on seat-sharing for 41 of the 48 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra. Sources in the Congress-NCP alliance said the two parties have agreed to contest 19 seats each out of the 40-41 seats.
The withdrawal of the candidature by DPAP leaders on the last day on August 30 is seen as a boost to the NC-Congress alliance.
The BJP will contest on 73 seats out of the 80 in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections as per the seat-sharing agreement reached between the saffron party and the Ajit Singh-led RLD.
The party's prime mover in West Bengal and the state Pradesh Congress president was stunned by Trinamool Congress's star candidate and cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan who comprehensively defeated Chowdhury by a margin of over 85,000 votes.
Debacle in four states prompts party to step up efforts to fare well in general elections, reports Sanjay Jog.
BJP backed to the hilt Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as its leader in the state and rebuffed a rebellious Chirag Paswan, while acknowledging his Lok Janshakti Party as an ally 'at the Centre'. At a press conference which was attended by top leaders of the JD-U headed by Kumar and the BJP, it was made clear that 'only those who accept the chief ministers leadership will be deemed to be a part of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar'.
The BJP is willing to offer two Lok Sabha seats, including Baghpat which is currently represented by its MP Satya Pal Singh, to the RLD and may also give it a Rajya Sabha seat, they added.
Asked how many seats the Congress would fight on, Singh said they would be flexible in seat sharing.
Months after winning the Lok Sabha polls from Sirsa, the former Union minister and the Congress' prominent Dalit face also indicated her desire to contest the upcoming assembly elections and said she wishes to work in the state but the high command will take a final call on the matter.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
According to an agreement reached after the telephonic conversation between Priyanka Gandhi and Yadav, the Congress has now got seats such as Sitapur and Barabanki.
Of the 288 seats in the state, BJP had won 105 in 2019 state polls, while the undivided NCP had bagged 54 seats.
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee will not be part of the virtual meeting on Saturday morning as she is preoccupied with prior engagements, they said.
A powerful lobby of BJP leaders -- mostly from the upper castes -- want to give no more than 70-80 assembly seats to its three allies.
In a significant political development, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah announced on Thursday that an alliance with the Congress was finalised for all 90 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir, which is going for its maiden assembly polls after being reorganised into a Union Territory.
Sources within the INDIA bloc said appointing Nitish Kumar as convenor would lend credibility to the INDIA bloc's demand for conducting a nationwide caste census.
'I had told Fadnavisji that I will be with the party till the Lok Sabha election and I will give my 100 per cent to campaign for the BJP. But ultimately I will have to take this decision (to quit the BJP).' 'When I requested him to see this from the point of view of an elder brother, he could not say anything more after that.'
BJP-led NDA gave five seats to the Chirag Paswan-led LJP (Ram Vilas).
The BJP's strategy seem to be to wean away allies from the Congress, in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, and maybe later in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, though in slow doses, but without wooing them into a new alliance. The idea seems to be only to weaken the INDIA bloc from within -- and leaving it at that, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Deve Gowda indicated on Sunday that they were ready to compromise.
Fissures appear to have emerged in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) as its two key allies, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, on Thursday clashed over seat sharing for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal.
Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien Thursday held West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury responsible for an alliance not working out between the two parties in West Bengal.
Delhi and Punjab are ruled by the AAP and these are the only two states that have free electricity supply, he said.
The sources said the opposition leaders would now plan joint rallies that were put on hold due to the assembly elections.
Amid some Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) constituents switching sides to the National Democratic Alliance, Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Sunday said the opposition alliance is 'strong' and the Bharatiya Janata Party is attempting a 'frantic rejig' of the political landscape as it is worried over the collective strength of the coalition.
Manjhi's son Santosh Suman, who is a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, made the statement a day after reports emerged that a seat-sharing formula has been arrived at in the National Democratic Alliance, and the HAM was likely to get only one of the state's 40 constituencies.
Highly placed sources in NDA said that both parties have agreed to share the 243 assembly seats there as per the formulae of the last election in October 2005 under which JD-U had contested 139 seats and BJP 102.
The Congress is contesting 328 seats in the ongoing elections -- the lowest since Independence.
On the Opposition's poll promise of statehood restoration, Shah said, "I want to ask Farooq Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who is going to restore the statehood. You cannot give it back. Why are you misleading the public?"
'Everyone is unhappy with the lieutenant governor's administration, which is ignorant, high-handed, and inaccessible.'
Congress leader Kumari Selja ruled out the possibility of an alliance with the AAP for the Haryana assembly polls.
Sonia Gandhi and Sharad Pawar can solve the issue when they meet next week, according to sources.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the NDA won 64 seats -- 62 bagged by the BJP and two by Apna Dal.
The SP has offered 11 seats to the Congress and seven seats to the RLD for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The opposition's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition in Maharashtra on Tuesday announced its seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray securing a substantial portion with 21 seats, while the Congress will contest 17 seats, and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar 10 seats.
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