Seat adjustment emerges a key challenge for Oppn bloc

Finally, it was left to former Congress president and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, no stranger to coalition herself, to remind everyone at the Bengaluru meeting of 26 Opposition parties of the key task facing them: seat adjustments to field as many common candidates as possible in the 2024 election.

- Saubhadra Chatterji

NEW DELHI: In her brief intervention of about two minutes, Gandhi said that whatever issues the leaders might agree to on Tuesday, "now we will have seat adjustments at the state level". Rahul Gandhi assured the other parties that the Congress would "accommodate" others "as much as possible", hinting that it is willing to share more seats to the allies.

According to a senior leader present at the meeting, Sonia Gandhi's intervention was important as all other leaders were more or less focused on ideological battle against the BJP and the broader issues that the opposition's grouping-in-the-making (christened I.N.D.I.A) would have to address.