Coomi Kapoor has been a journalist for the last four decades. Her forte has been political reporting. She has witnessed the shifting power equations in the capital -- from Indira Gandhi’s regime to the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party. She is presently contributing editor to The Indian Express. Earlier, she worked for the newspaper as chief reporter, special correspondent and editor, Delhi. Coomi has worked in several publications in different capacities. She was principal correspondent, India Today, editor news, Sunday Mail, bureau chief, Indian Post and political editor, Illustrated Weekly. She has been writing a political diary in a lighter vein since 1985 and her syndicated column was carried by many newspapers. She was also stringer for The Times, London, and columnist for The Star, Malaysia
Inside track: It is Behenji who will decide what form the alliance takes with Congress
The Congress believes that the BSP leader will eventually climb down under public pressure for a united front.
Numbers crunch
Buoyed by three victories, the Congress now assumes that Rahul Gandhi is the automatic favourite to lead an anti-BJP alliance in 2019. But not all Opposition leaders are impressed. Congress ally Chandrababu Naidu, who organised the successful anti-BJP conference a day before the vote count, has lost ground after his Telangana defeat. The victor, K Chandrashekar Rao, is not a Gandhi fan. He prefers a federal front to a national level mahagathbandhan, as do Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati. Eventually, it is Behenji who will decide what form the alliance takes. She may have grudgingly given her support to Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, but Mayawati has not forgiven the Congress for rejecting her demands for a tie-up in Rajasthan and MP on her terms. She remains adamant that in an electoral alliance in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress can at best expect eight seats, since the party won two seats and six Congress candidates came second in 2014. The formula is unacceptable to the Congress, particularly as in some of the seats, such as Ghaziabad and Lucknow, the BJP was ahead by huge margins. Mayawati maintains her share of UP’s 80 seats is 40 and has already selected most of her candidates. (Forty is also the number of seats Banerjee hopes to win). The Congress believes that the BSP leader will eventually climb down under public pressure for a united front. It calculates that if it wants to play a decisive role in an alliance, its own national seat tally in 2019 should be a minimum of 125 seats, slightly less than the halfway mark of 272 in the Lok Sabha.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario