CWC meet on Dec 21 to discuss 2024 poll strategy, seat sharing may top agenda

The Congress has called a meeting of its working committee on December 21 to deliberate on the strategy for the 2024 general election and chalk out a plan for its poll campaign to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party, sources said.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has called the meeting, which will take place at the All India Congress Committee headquarters two days after the INDIA bloc meeting on December 19, to deliberate on the political situation in the country and the way forward, they said.

Seat sharing and campaign is likely to be top of the agenda, they added.

The meeting is also likely to discuss the possibility of a yatra that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi could undertake before the 2024 polls with unemployment and price rise as its main planks, the sources said.

An east-to-west yatra in hybrid mode, including on-foot, is being mulled by the party and a final decision is expected to be taken soon, they said.

Ahead of the Congress Working Committee meeting, the 4th meeting of the leaders of INDIA parties will be held at 3 pm on December 19 in New Delhi.

Evolving a "core positive agenda", seat sharing and a programme to hold joint rallies are among the main challenges before the opposition INDIA bloc that will be taken up at its next meeting.

The parties intend to move forward with the unity theme -- "Main Nahin, Hum" (We, Not Me) -- as a counter to the prime minister at the meeting, a senior leader of the Congress said.

The CWC meeting will also analyse the recent assembly poll results in which it was defeated in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan while winning and forming the government in Telangana.

The party also lost the polls in Mizoram.

The CWC would deliberate on the reasons for the defeat and the way forward for the 2024 polls, they said.

The meeting is being held at a time when the challenge before the Congress is to come out with an alternative positive agenda to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party in the next general elections.

There is a view in the party that it would need to think out of the box to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2024.