Congress MP Rahul Gandhi reached out to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Thursday evening, amid talk of yet more rifts in the INDIA bloc ahead of next year’s general election. Sources have told NDTV Mr Gandhi could not speak to the Janata Dal (United) boss since he was in a meeting, but the two are expected to talk later today. While the agenda is not known, there is speculation the two will speak on the fallout of Wednesday’s meeting, at which Nitish Kumar seemed to be overlooked as a possible convener for the group and/or prime ministerial candidate.

In fact, sources told NDTV Nitish Kumar clashed with INDIA leaders on several issues, including renaming the bloc as ‘Bharat’. That proposal was swiftly nixed by the Congress’ Sonia Gandhi. He reportedly also got angry with Manoj Jha of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, a state ally, because Mr Jha translated his speech from Hindi to Tamil for the benefit of political leaders from the DMK.

There was also talk Nitish Kumar lashed out at the Congress after its dismal performance in November’s Assembly polls, which were widely seen as a dry run of INDIA’s pull with voters. The Congress was routed in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan – heartland states that INDIA must win (at least some anyway) in order to defeat the BJP – after seat-sharing squabbles with allies.

The JDU, Bengal’s Trinamool Congress, and the Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav had all called out the Congress for failing to acknowledge the need to share seats, particularly with regional parties.

At the Delhi meet – itself a flashpoint after the Congress prioritised last month’s polls over strategising for the 2024 Lok Sabha election – Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Delhi counterpart, Arvind Kejriwal, set tongues wagging after proposing Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge as a potential convener and even Prime Minister, should INDIA actually defeat the BJP.

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Mr Kharge immediately declined, saying he preferred to focus on first winning the election.

Nitish Kumar has publicly refuted talk of his prime ministerial ambitions but, privately, is believed to be an aspirant. His party has been more explicit; in August and September, JDU leaders backed their boss for the country’s top job, and, this month, said he had “all the qualities and experience that a PM should have”. However, the JDU was careful to also acknowledge this must be a collective call.

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Ms Banerjee and Mr Kejriwal proposing Mr Kharge for the job, therefore, seemed to catch Nitish Kumar by surprise, and sources said he left the meeting in a huff. JDU spokesperson KC Tyagi later said, “… we (INDIA) will not project any face for 2024. This was the decision taken in Mumbai meeting and such decisions are not changed simply because one person says something.”

The JDU also insisted Nitish Kumar did not leave angry, and underlined its commitment to the bloc, which Mr Tyagi referred to as “… our child”. “We gave birth to it… how can we be angry with it?”

The “Kharge for PM” episode has further unsettled INDIA – which was created to unite the opposition so it might beat the BJP’s election-winning machinery. Nitish Kumar was one of its prime movers, arguably even its founder, and to lose him now, so close to the polls, will be an image issue INDIA cannot afford.

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The INDIA alliance, in all likelihood, will manifest in Bengal as a tie-up between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, with the CPI(M) staying out amid its bitter rivalry with Mamata Banerjee’s party.

Though the two are amenable to a tie-up in Bengal, negotiations on seat-sharing are expected to be tough. The Congress is apparently expecting to contest at least six of West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats, a demand that the Trinamool Congress will find hard to accept.

Trinamool Congress sources say merely contesting seats should not be the focus, it should be to win the seats, something that the Congress cannot pull off with its current organisational strength in the state. The Congress won only two seats in Bengal in 2019, but the party’s central leadership is keen on improving its strike rate in the state that sends the third highest number of MPs to parliament after Uttar Pradesh (80) and Maharashtra (48).

The Congress believes that joining hands with the Trinamool will help improve its tally. The party hopes to convince Mamata Banerjee to give up seats like Raiganj, Malda and Murshidabad.

Several national leaders of the Congress are wary of a tie-up with the Left in West Bengal, especially after its disastrous outcome in the 2021 state election. The two parties failed to win a single seat.

The Left is seen to be largely a depleted force electorally, with pockets of support in parts of the state. For a party that ruled the state unchallenged for more than three decades, the CPI (M)’s downfall has been remarkable. It has zero MPs or MLAs in Bengal and the decline has been steep over the past two general elections.

The Congress believes the CPI (M) has also not been very forthcoming about an alliance to take on the BJP in Bengal. Besides, the party is also worried about the contradiction of allies in Bengal fighting each other in Kerala. Besides confusing the electorate, it has complicated their national election campaigns, leaving them open to potshots from the BJP. The Congress feels it has much better prospects in Kerala than in Bengal. The Congress leadership favours prioritising the party’s strategy in Kerala – it can take on the CPI(M) much more effectively in Kerala than it can fight the Trinamool Congress in Bengal.

The Congress leadership is also keenly aware – though a section of West Bengal leaders continues to push for an alliance with the Left due to their personal equations – that Left votes in the state have shifted to the BJP in droves. In Bengal, the phenomenon has been dubbed ‘Baam Thekey Ram”, which translates as “Left to Ram (pro-Hindu politics)”. A good example of this is the election of the BJP’s Khagen Murmu in Malda North, a former Congress bastion. Murmu was a communist who shifted to the BJP before the 2019 general election. A four-term CPI (M) MLA, he is now a BJP MP.  

The Left will also not vacate seats like the Raiganj for the Congress. The seat was held by the Congress before the Left won it in 2014. In 2019, it went to the BJP. The Congress’s only worry is the Left cutting into its votes and indirectly helping the BJP. The CPI (M) also brought the Indian Secular Front (ISF) into the mainstream by diluting its own brand of politics. The move to bring the ISF, led by a Muslim cleric, into the electoral forefront in 2021 was seen as an ill-advised and strategic blunder by the Left, one that also hurt the Congress and left both with a tally of zero.

As for the Trinamool Congress, it has made inroads in the Congress bastions of Malda and Murshidabad. Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhury managed to retain his seat in Baharampur and still has connect with the masses in the region but the Congress Malda North and Murshidabad to the BJP and Trinamool Congress. A division of Muslim votes is advantage BJP but if the Trinamool and the Congress join forces, it is a much easier fight for each. The consolidation of anti-BJP votes is of key importance to the two parties.

Mamata Banerjee has been vocal about the importance of a seat-sharing arrangement and has indicated that she is ready for talks with the Congress. Some state Congress leaders have been stalling these talks, which is baffling to many political analysts. Mamata Banerjee, a Congress alum, had close ties with leaders like ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury and Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi – Congress stalwarts from areas where the party hopes to contest – and this will be a key element of an accommodative stance that the Trinamool Congress may adopt towards the Congress. However, Adhir Choudhury’s acrimony with Mamata Banerjee is a block the party may want out of the way as it hurtles towards the 2024 polls.

A couple survived two separate plane crashes that occurred only a few miles apart on the same day. Stefano Pirilli, 30, and his fiance Antonietta Demasi, 22, en route to Turin, Italy, experienced harrowing moments as their planes plummeted to the ground.

As Mr Pirilli’s aircraft went down, Ms Demasi’s plane also encountered trouble soon after. Firefighters promptly rescued the pair from each crash site.

Miraculously, the couple and the pilots, including Ms Demasi’s pilot Paolo Rotondo, 38, survived the incidents. Ms Demasi suffered a pelvic injury, while pilot Rotondo sustained a head wound, the Daily Mail reported. Mr Pirilli was unharmed from the wreckage of a two-seater Tecnam P92 Echo Super.

This was Antonietta’s first flying experience, Mr Pirilli said, adding he was sorry for how it turned out. He added that their day started on a beautiful note but ended with both crashing in separate planes. He said they were fortunate to not have died, adding their thoughts were with the injured pilots.

Sunday was a perfect day for flying blue skies, sunshine and not a cloud, it was the perfect way to have some fun in the air, he said. And now Mr Pirilli just wanted his girlfriend and the pilot to get better.

Reflecting on the events leading to the crashes, he explained, “We fell foul of the weather and the time – the mist started to come up as the temperature dropped and then all of a sudden it was night.”

Mr Pirilli said they decided to try and land at Busano, and he called Antonietta to inform her. The pilot of her plane said he would land at the airfield near San Gillio. As they headed to the airstrip, they were enveloped in mist and darkness. There were electricity cables around and before they knew it, they crashed onto the ground and into a meadow, Mr Pirilli said.

Despite the challenging circumstances, Mr Pirilli maintained his focus on the well-being of his fiance and the pilot. He managed to call the emergency services and then tried calling Antonietta but there was no answer. The firefighters turned up and said how crazy it was as this was their second plane crash. “I rushed straight to the hospital and have been there ever since. I just hope Antonietta and Paolo are out of the hospital soon,” he added.