Cong's alliance panel takes feedback from state units, will apprise leadership on tie-ups soon

The Congress' National Alliance Committee, set up to facilitate seat-sharing talks with INDIA bloc allies, held a slew of meetings over Friday and Saturday with state units to get their feedback on tie-ups and would apprise the leadership of the ground situation after a couple of days. The committee has held meetings with almost all state units, including Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, with only deliberations with the Punjab unit and a few others left, an alliance committee member said.

"Our job was to get ground-level feedback from the workers and party leaders and make assessments as to what needs to be done going forward," he said.

The member also stated that the committee has sought time from the party's leadership and would have a meeting with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi where it would place before them, the details of the feedback and the panel's assessment.


The meeting would be held after a couple of days as Kharge and Gandhi may be travelling, the leader said.

After a meeting with the alliance committee, Congress general secretary and Uttar Pradesh in-charge Avinash Pande said ways to strengthen the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc successfully were discussed at the meeting.

"The report of the committee will be placed before party president Kharge, Sonia ji and Rahul ji and on (January) 4th, a meeting would be held on all these meetings and whatever decision the high command takes, we will move forward in that direction," he told reporters.

The negotiations with the allies will formally start next week after the panel gives its feedback to the party leadership, sources said.

The five-member National Alliance Committee formed last week is headed by senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik and has Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Salman Khurshid and Mohan Prakash as its members.