Congress Wants To Retain Its Position As The Only National Alternative, Says Kapil Sibal

Congress Wants To Retain Its Position As The Only National Alternative, Says Kapil Sibal
Indian National Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal. (Photograph: PTI)

The Congress is seen as lagging the Bharatiya Janata Party in stitching alliances ahead for this general election. While the BJP has joined local parties in several states including Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Assam, the Congress has been left out of the alliance in Uttar Pradesh, has not announced a seat-sharing formula in Maharashtra or Bihar and is still said to be mulling an alliance with the Aam Admi Party in Delhi.

“We still have all the alliances we had in the past,” Kapil Sibal, senior Congress leader, said in an interview with BloombergQuint. The former union minister said the partnerships that the Congress had going into the last general election in 2014 are intact, while new ones are being worked out.

The real issue seems to be the party's need to assert itself at the only alternative to the BJP. A host of alliance talks have fallen through because the Congress, which was reduced to an all-time low of 44 seats in the last election, was being offered too few seats in several states.

We are the only national alternative and we want to retain our position as the only national alternative.
Kapil Sibal, Senior Congress Leader

Watch Kapil Sibal answer questions on the ‘Mahagathbandhan', the leadership question and much more in the full interview:

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