Mallikarjun Kharge as chairman if all accept Nitish Kumar as convenor: Congress to allies

The Congress leadership is in the process of conveying to leaders of alliance partners that it wants a consensus on Nitish Kumar as convenor of the INDIA bloc before announcing appointment of chairman Mallikarjun Kharge with Kumar's name. No formal announcement has been made on the names, even three days after the alliance leaders discussed the issue at Saturday's meeting. The main Opposition has linked Kharge acquiescing to appeals of allies only if there is no difference of opinion on the convenor.

"The Congress president is seized of the matter of discussing with allies about the issue of the alliance's chairman and convenor posts. At Saturday's meeting itself, the Congress side made it clear that Khargeji will accept their appeal and accept the chairman's post only if there is a similar consensus on the choice of convenorship too," a senior Congress leader involved in discussions told ET. When asked if the party was hopeful of consensus over Kumar's name for convenor, the person said, "that was the dominant view at our last meeting. I think it will gain larger acceptability soon."

Kumar 'declining' the appeal to him to become convenor is seen as his way of seeking larger consensus among INDIA parties, especially since AITC leader Mamata Banerjee, SS(UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav were not present on Saturday.


RJD, Congress, JDU and Left are clearly in favour of making Kumar the convenor for cementing the alliance. The Congress leadership, therefore, is trying to take all big players of INDIA on board on Kumar by linking it to Kharge's acceptance of the chairmanship of the bloc. The uncertainty over Congress-AITC alliance is also a backgrounder to the Congress push. Congress does not want to take over the chairmanship if an unresolved rift over the convenor's post sharpens the fault lines.