The Congress's poor showing in assembly polls is expected to rob it of much of its heft.
The INDIA bloc meeting in progress today will be the last meet of the alliance before next year's general election, the alliance leaders have said. In the coming days, only the coordination committee will meet to decide the contours of seat sharing and work out adjustments. The coordination committee will also be in charge of working out a national action plan and a possible common manifesto.
The Opposition bloc will also not project any Prime Ministerial face.
The leaders of more than 15 parties are meeting in Delhi today at this final meeting of the alliance. All the party chiefs are present except Hemant Soren, the Chief Minister of Jharkhand and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief. Mr Soren, who could not be present due to the ongoing assembly session in the state, will be attending the meet online.
At today's all-important meet, the leaders are expected to reach a consensus on a number of issues, the most vital of which would be seat sharing.
At the last meet in Mumbai, the opposition parties had agreed that the matter should be discussed at the earliest, but it could not be canvassed because the Congress was tied up with the assembly elections in five states.
Reaching a consensus will be extremely hard in states like West Bengal, Delhi and Punjab -- where the ruling parties do not see eye-to-eye with the Congress, being state-level opponents for decades.
The situation is similar in Uttar Pradesh, where Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party has no love lost for the Congress.
Akhilesh Yadav has openly expressed his displeasure with the Congress ahead of the election in Madhya Pradesh, where the state Congress had brushed off the seat sharing pact worked out by its central leaders.
In Bihar and Maharashtra too, the Opposition bloc participants have a very clear idea about their claims.
This is the hurdle the Opposition alliance had not been able to cross in 2019. This election, they agree, is a battle for survival.
The Congress's poor showing in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assembly elections, though, is expected to rob it of much of its heft.
Parties like Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress is already flexing muscles, demanding that the Congress take a back seat in the alliance. This pressure is only likely to increase.
Apart from this, other topics likely to be discussed in today's meeting include the common agenda of the bloc, especially in issues like the caste census. Mamata Banerjee's stand on this issue is not clear.
Some decision may also be taken regarding the venue and agenda of joint rallies.
The parties are also likely to discuss the suspension of Opposition MPs in parliament over the last two days and the other dominating political issues.