Bangladesh News

After retaining power with a comfortable win in general elections, India’s ruling Congress yesterday set in motion the process of formation of government by holding talks among its top leaders and allies.

Party sources said top Congress leaders met in the morning to discuss issues related to formation of the government. Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi, her Political Secretary Ahmed Patel and Defence Minister A K Antony, among others, attended the meeting at the official residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

It was the first high-level meeting in which the top Congress leadership discussed whether to take on board independents or parties of the Fourth Front like Samajwadi Party headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal led by Lalu Prasad to form the government.

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) with 260 seats is short of a dozen seats to reach the majority mark of 272 in the 545-member Lok Sabha. Another meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) is scheduled to take stock of the situation following the poll results.

The sources said that Congress leadership would hold discussions with the allies to finalise the details of government formation after the CWC meeting.

The UPA would require to submit the list of supporting parties and their numbers to President Pratibha Patil along with the name of new Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) leader for forming the government.

It is still not clear whether LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, who lost the poll from his Hajipur seat in Bihar, and Lalu Prasad, who are still ministers in outgoing UPA government, will be invited for the UPA meeting or not. Parties of both the leaders have contested without seat adjustment with Congress in this election.

A meeting of leaders of Congress and other UPA allies will take place soon to chalk out a strategy for formation of the government at the Centre.

A meeting of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) will also be taking place in “a day or two” to elect the new party president and CPP leader.

“In a day or two, the CPP meeting will take place as some formalities have to be completed. CPP’s president and leader have to be elected. Congress party’s leaders in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have also to be decided,” party’s media department in-charge Janardan Dwivedi told reporters yesterday.

On taking support of other parties, Dwivedi said “all these issues will be discussed later on. First, we will hold a meeting with UPA allies and only then it will be decided whose support has to be taken.”

“All these things (about taking support of other parties) will be decided after the meeting with our old allies…with those who were with us earlier. We will first discuss the issue with them,” he said.

Meanwhile, focus has shifted to who could be in the new cabinet. The names include Congress leaders Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel, former J and K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Mamata Banerjee, chief of Trinamool congress that won 19 seats and is the biggest constituent of UPA after Congress.

After the formality of resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this morning, the UPA leaders will meet here in the evening to decide on the composition of the ministry and on the issue whether the coalition should take support from outside the grouping, sources said.

The first meeting of the newly-constituted CPP is expected to be convened in a day or two to elect its leader. Singh, who is already the prime ministerial candidate of the Congress, is also likely to be elected by the MPs at a joint meeting of the UPA parties.