The ‘tentative’ schedule for the November first-week meeting of the Opposition parties bloc INDIA seems to have encountered a roadblock due to the ongoing tension between major stakeholders, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP), over their alliance in poll-bound States.

Additionally, a member of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is facing controversy and has received summons from the Parliamentary Ethics Committee.

Sources said the meeting was being planned for November 5 at Nagpur after consultation with all parties, including West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, who confirmed her availability after Durga Puja followed by Lakhi Puja in October end.

Sources said the invitation to all top leaders was extended by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi during the mid October after a meeting of the two with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar.

A consensus was reached for the meeting to be held at Delhi or Nagpur but some of the leaders suggested Nagpur, being a RSS bastion and that Pawar and the Congress are in an alliance in Maharashtra with Uddhav Thackeray led Shiv Sena faction.

The schedule was for October end keeping in mind the hectic November Assembly elections in crucial Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram but the TMC conveyed its problem to be part of it due to festive season in Bengal culminating with Lakshmi Puja which is held six days after Bijoya Dashmi.

“The meeting was initially being discussed for November 5 in Nagpur. However, during this time, a controversy involving a TMC member in a ‘cash for query’ scandal has arisen. Leaders from both sides (the Congress and the TMC) will now engage in talks in the coming days to discuss the details of the next alliance meeting in India,” said a Congress leader involved in back channel talks to unite the Opposition parties.

While the Congress will be occupied throughout November with the Assembly polls, as they hope to retain Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan while remaining strong contenders in Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Mizoram, Bihar alliance partners JD(U) and RJD have expressed that it will be challenging for them to attend before November 10 due to the festive season, which includes Diwali and Chhath Puja celebrations that extend until November 20.

Given the circumstances, some of the leaders when contacted said the meeting will take place only by November end, but believed that parties like the Congress, the SP, the AAP will get buffer time to iron out their differences arising over the question of alliance at State and national level.

Differences cropped up between the Congress and Akhilesh Yadav led SP when the latter stated that the grand old party did not honour its rights to be part of the alliance in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where Arvind Kejriwal led AAP has also entered the poll fray.

In an attempt to placate the agitated SP, senior Congress leader and one of the decision-maker of the party in MP, Digvijay Singh, said his party colleague former CM of State Kamal Nath wanted to have an alliance with the Samajwadi Party “with full honesty”, but maintained he does not know how the talks for a tie-up between the two INDIA bloc members got derailed.

Digvijaya praised Akhilesh for his leadership qualities, but disagreed with Kamal Nath, over his choice of words while dismissing his (Akhilesh) criticism for not leaving any seat in MP for the Uttar Pradesh-based party for the November 17 polls.

The former CM said he had suggested Nath to leave four Assembly seats for the SP, which wanted to field nominees in half a dozen segments.

Akhilesh had accused the Congress of having “cheated” his party after Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai asked his party to withdraw from MP in favour of the grand old party, saying the SP did not have any base there.

Rai also said as an INDIA bloc partner, the SP should rally behind the Congress if it wants to fight the ruling BJP in MP.

The SP chief went after the Congress’s MP heavyweights and ex-chief ministers, Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, charging that they kept the SP leaders waiting till midnight, when they had gone to meet them for seat-sharing talks.