INDIA bloc seat sharing to talks to begin after Sunday, AAP demanding seats in Guj, Haryana, NE

New Delhi, Dec 1 (IANS) With the Assembly elections over and the results expected on Sunday, the seat sharing talks of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will gain pace even as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is bargaining hard with Congress for seats in northeastern states and in Gujarat.

A senior Congress source said that the seat sharing talks will gain momentum once the Assembly election results of five states are declared. The sources said that the party will be in good condition of bargaining as it is expected that it will improve its tally of the MLAs in five states as compared to 2018.

On the talks with the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the party source said that they are ready to give it three seats in Delhi and also their present seats in Punjab.

“However, they are demanding seats in Assam, Haryana (Sonepat) and several other northeastern states and in Gujarat,” the source said, adding that the party is not ready to accept the condition led by the AAP.

However, the source said that the discussion will be held in detail before coming to any conclusion as no decision has been taken yet.

After the third meeting of the INDIA bloc in Mumbai on August 31 and September 1, it announced to form a 14 member coordination committee and 19 member Election Strategy Committee to take on the BJP in crucial 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The coordination committee has Congress’s KC Venugopal, NCP’s Sharad Pawar, DMK’s T.R. Baalu, JMM’s Hemant Soren, Shiv Sena-UBT’s Sanjay Raut, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Trinamool Congress’ Abhishek Banerjee, AAP’s Raghav Chaddha, Samajwadi Party’s Javed Ali Khan, JD-U’s Lallan Singh, CPI’s D. Raja, National Conference’s Omar Abdullah, and PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti. The CPI-M is yet to select its nominee.

–IANS

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