INDIA parties may hold their horses till state elections

The performance of the Congress party in these state elections will be particularly important for its positioning within the INDIA bloc and its dealings with internal rivals...

New Delhi: While the two-day meeting of the Opposition bloc INDIA starts from Thursday in Mumbai, many delicate contours of the alliance mechanism, including serious seat-sharing talks and real attempts at leadership structures, may have to wait until after the upcoming assembly elections in five states later this year, according to some persons involved in the exercise...

The feeling among some INDIA bloc leaders involved in the informal coordination is that the main players in the INDIA bloc, especially those with turf rivalries and discreet tactical tie-ups within the alliance, would rather wait to see the outcome of the upcoming elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram in November-December to judge the political mood before the next Lok Sabha polls and thus firm up their moves and bargain points...

For Congress, which got a morale booster in the Karnataka victory, gaining at least two to three states in the November-December polls would be crucial in order to position itself as the leading Opposition party against BJP and position accordingly within the INDIA bloc and in dealings with its internal pulls..

Congress performance in the upcoming state elections would be equally watched by some regional parties within the INDIA bloc, who are turf rivals or are competing with the GoP, to firm up their own coalition reflexes and choices...

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