Congress 'open to forging anti-BJP coalition' for Madhya Pradesh polls

Congress president Rahul Gandhi Karnataka 2018

Explaining the logic behind considering an anti-BJP coalition, he said that in the 2014 election, BJP had received 31 per cent of the votes polled and 69 per cent of the votes were against him. “Despite this, the BJP claims the public mandate was with them. We do not want the secular vote to be divided, so we will start discussions with parties soon,” he said.

The veteran Congress leader’s statement comes just a day after several opposition leaders attended the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy in a massive show of unity. Nath said that the situation on the national level and at the state level was different, but alliances will have to be made keeping in mind the target of 2019 elections.

In Madhya Pradesh, the “like-minded” parties Nath spoke of would be the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The chiefs of the two parties were also on stage with Rahul and Sonia Gandhi in Bengaluru on Wednesday. But there would be hurdles in an electoral alliance as the Samajwadi Party has already said that it wants to contest on all seats in the state.

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