Congress scouting for new allies to checkmate NDA

Party think tank believes it will emerge with most number of seats

The party that led the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) over the past five years has started looking for new allies to counter the National Democratic Alliance’s claim to form the next government.

Though poll-results will be out on May 16, the Congress’ “war room”—as its election coordination centre in New Delhi is known as—has prepared an assessment that predicted that the party would emerge as the single largest party with around 150-160 LS seats in its kitty.

The internal assessment was based on inputs from the party’s units across the states as well as some other agencies. It also stated that the BJP would have around 20-30 seats less than the Congress.

Sources said that the Congress expected its pre-poll allies like the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra and Meghalaya, Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, National Conference (NC) in Jammu and Kashmir and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in Jharkhand  to win 20-30 more seats.

Though the Congress could not strike pre-poll seat-sharing deals with Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP), it expects that the troika — emerging as a fourth front — would finally extend support to it to prevent the BJP-led NDA to come to power.

“The UPA is intact. We have not left any of our allies. All secular parties are welcome,” said the All India Congress Committee general secretary Janardan Dwivedi.

Another senior Congress leader said that if the SP, RJD and the LJP could take the total tally up to around 220-230, the UPA would be in a position to stake the claim for forming the next government, although it would need more allies to reach the magic number of 272.

The Congress expects the Left parties, which withdrew support from the UPA after the spat over India-US nuke deal last year, will once again join hands with it and other secular parties to form a government at the Centre.

The recent statement of  West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee boosted the Congress’s hope that the Leftists would finally soften tone.

The party, according to the sources, was also exploring options for having alliances with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP), Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and J Jayalalitha’s All India AIADMK.