Nidhi Razdan: INDIA alliance faces a tough time. - video Dailymotion

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00:00The last few days have been marked by a very ugly spat between the Samajwadi Party and

00:08the Congress, two important constituents of the India Opposition Alliance. This comes

00:13over a breakdown in seat-sharing talks for Madhya Pradesh. Now this spat, which has played

00:19out rather publicly and has been quite ugly, is reflecting certain inner contradictions

00:25and challenges that the India bloc is grappling with at the moment. The alliance was announced

00:30with much fanfare in July. There were a couple of meetings that were also held at the top

00:35level of the top leadership. The last meeting was held in Mumbai at the end of August. But

00:39since then, there has been virtually no progress on the most important issue of all, and that

00:45is seat-sharing. In fact, when the leaders had met back at the end of August in Mumbai,

00:50one of the things that many parties had stressed on was the need to come to an early seat-sharing

00:55agreement, even by the end of October, so that candidates had enough time to go out

01:00there and campaign and take on the formidable machinery of the BJP. But there's been no

01:05sign of any progress on that front at all. Instead, what we have seen is bickering. And

01:10the SP Congress spat was just one example of that. There was a coordination committee

01:15of the India bloc that was set up. It has met only once in the middle of September.

01:20There's been no sign of a meeting to take place after that. There was supposed to be

01:24a joint rally of the opposition leaders in Bhopal. Kamal Nath scuttled that because of

01:29the Madhya Pradesh elections. But no alternative venue or no alternative site for a joint rally

01:36has been decided after that once again. It shows that there are many stumbling blocks

01:41ahead as the elections get closer and closer for opposition unity. And the real challenge

01:47will now lie in overcoming those hurdles in the next few weeks and months.

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