Congress to Bank on Alliances, Good Candidates, Solid Campaign in Lok Sabha Polls

The Congress is banking on a solid campaign and good candidates in the Hindi-speaking states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where the grand old party lost the recent Assembly polls, but has a decent vote share, writes ETV Bharat's Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi:The Congress is banking on its alliances with strong regional parties in big states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra while the grand old party is focusing on good candidates, toning up organisation and a solid campaign in states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The Congress has a pre-poll pact with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and is likely to announce its pacts with RJD and Left parties in Bihar and with Shiv Sena UBT and NCP Sharadchandra Pawar in Maharashtra soon. As an alliance with the TMC in West Bengal looks difficult, the Congress will focus on its strong seats while letting Mamata Banerjee’s party take the lead in defeating the BJP, said party insiders.

According to party insiders, RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav, who attended the INDIA bloc rally in Mumbai on Sunday, was likely to finalise seat-sharing in Bihar with senior Congress leaders in Delhi on Monday. “The alliance in Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra will be announced after the CWC meeting on March 19. We hope the alliance will be able to dent the BJP majorly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which together send 120 seats to the Lok Sabha. That was the reason why the BJP was worried and took away our allies JD-U in Bihar and RLD in UP to hit the alliance just before the polls were announced. But, the alliance is still strong in both the states,” said a senior AICC functionary.

As per Election Commission data of Bihar in 2020, the RJD had a 23 per cent vote share, the Congress had a six per cent vote share and the BJP had a 15 per cent vote share. As per the Election Commission data of UP in 2022, the SP had a 32 per cent vote share and the Congress had a two per cent vote share in the state where the BJP had a 41 per cent vote share.

“The alliance is conducting a joint campaign across the state on all 80 Lok Sabha seats. Hence, the results would be good for us. The people are fed up with the ruling BJP,” senior UP Congress leader Akhilesh Pratap Singh told ETV Bharat. As per the EC data in 2019 in Maharashtra, the Congress had a 16 per cent vote share, but party insiders said it was not possible to assess the vote share of the two allies Shiv Sena and NCP as both the parties have had splits over the past year.

“The MVA has been there since 2019 and is strong. Together, the alliance will win over two-thirds of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state,” AICC secretary in-charge of Maharashtra Ashish Dua told ETV Bharat. In the other Hindi-speaking states Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where the grand old party lost the recent Assembly polls, but has a decent vote share, the Congress is banking on a solid campaign and good candidates. The Congress had a 40 per cent vote share in MP, which has 29 Lok Sabha seats and a 39 per cent vote share in Rajasthan, which has 25 Lok Sabha seats.

“You have seen the names announced in MP so far. All of them are winning candidates. Besides, our campaign is going to be based on the promises being made by the party's high command. Also, we have been able to identify the organisational gaps and have plugged them. All of this should get us a good number of seats,” AICC secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh Sanjay Kapoor told ETV Bharat.