Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Apr 12: Yet another effort to bring all the opposition parties together to give a united fight against the BJP in the 2024 Parliamentary elections, was initiated on Wednesday.
This time it was the Bihar chief minister and the Janata Dal(United) supremo Nitish Kumar who along with his deputy and the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav took the initiative to form a united front of the opposition against his erstwhile alliance partner the BJP. Nitish Kumar called on the Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and “decided” that all the opposition parties would contest the coming Parliamentary elections “together.”
The former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, whose leadership is not acceptable to most of the opposition leaders, was also present at the “historic meeting.” Though the road to Opposition unity is riddled with hurdles, the leaders of the three parties vowed to make efforts to bring together as many parties as possible.
Addressing a joint press conference after the meeting held at Kharge’s residence in Delhi, the leaders said the Opposition would together protect the Constitution and democracy and would unitedly give a new direction to the country. Rahul Gandhi said the Opposition would together develop its vision for the country and present the same before people as they fight the ongoing ideological battle together.
This is the first formal effort in forging Opposition unity ahead of next year’s election as the Congress chief would be meeting top leaders of various Opposition parties in the coming few days. Kumar, who arrived in Delhi on Tuesday, will also be meeting leaders of several other opposition parties during his stay in the national capital. Incidentally, all the three parties, the JD(U), the RJD and the Congress are alliance partners in running the Bihar government.
“We held a historic meeting here. A lot of issues were discussed and we decided that we will unite all parties and fight the upcoming polls in a united manner. We have made this decision and all of us will work for this,” Kharge told reporters while lauding the efforts of Kumar, Yadav and others sitting along with him. He said the leaders present at the meeting will work on a common line of thought and asserted that efforts were being made in this regard.
Rahul Gandhi termed the meeting as a “historic step” to unite the Opposition. Asked how many Opposition parties will come together, he said, “This is a process and we will develop the Opposition’s vision for the country and all those parties that will come together with us, we will together fight the ongoing ideological fight in the country.” “We will unitedly stand against the attack on institutions, the attack on the country,” he said, adding that a very important step has been taken today.
The meeting comes amid talks of like-minded Opposition parties coming together on a common platform to defeat the BJP in next year’s Lok Sabha elections. In his remarks, the Bihar Chief Minister said, “We will make all efforts to unite more and more parties in the country. We will make all efforts, sit together, and work unitedly, this has been decided.” “After today’s discussions, we will move forward on that basis. All those who agree will sit together and decide the future course of action,” Kumar said.
In a tweet in Hindi, Kharge said, “Will preserve the Constitution and save democracy. Rahul Gandhi ji and we met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ji, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav ji and other leaders, reiterated our resolve to raise the voice of the people together and give a new direction to the country.” The leaders also had lunch at Kharge’s residence, where JDU president Lalan Singh, Bihar Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh, Congress leader Salman Khurshid and RJD leader Manoj Jha were also present.
Kharge has spoken to several Opposition leaders including M.K. Stalin and Uddhav Thackeray recently, in an attempt to forge unity among like-minded parties to take on the BJP. He is likely to hold discussions with other top Opposition leaders in the coming days. In Mumbai, the veteran national Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar has also told the leaders of the Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) faction that all the three partners of the Maha Vikas Aghadi should stay together and fight unitedly against the BJP. While both Kharge, Rahul, and Kumar described the meeting as “historic”, the leaders know the stumbling blocks in Opposition unity. On the ground, many of the Opposition parties are pitted against each other — West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana being key examples. Some of the leaders, particularly Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee, have announced they will go alone in the 2024 elections.
Then there is the hurdle of an alternative grouping and reluctance by some of the parties to accept the leadership of the Congress. After the meeting between Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav and Banerjee last month, the SP and the Trinamool Congress indicated they would not be joining any formation led by the Congress. Sources said ideas such as appointing a non-Congress leader as the chairperson or convener of the Opposition front to address the concerns of some of the parties that do not share a good equation with the Congress were being talked about.
In February, Kumar had said he was waiting for a signal from the Congress to work towards bringing all the Opposition parties together and the Congress responded by saying that it knows its “role” very well and argued that Opposition unity would be neither possible nor successful without it.
