Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 29: The next gathering of the opposition parties towards a unity move against the BJP in the coming Parliamentary elections will be held in Bengaluru on July 13 and 14 instead of Shimla.
The decision to change the venue was taken on Wednesday, it was announced by the Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar. He said the decision was taken owing to continuous heavy rainfall in Himachal Pradesh.
On June 23, at the first opposition meet in Patna, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had announced that the next meet to strategise a united front against the BJP would be held in Shimla.
“After the first meeting, now we have decided that the second meeting of the opposition party will happen in Bengaluru on 13th and 14th July. The decision has been taken today, earlier the meeting was supposed to be held in Shimla but due to heavy rainfall In Shimla, the meeting will now happen in Bengaluru,” Pawar said.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become restless after opposition parties’ meet in Patna”, the NCP chief said. In Bengaluru, we will be planning our strategies on how to be united and how to face the elections together. We will also try to form a strategy to oppose the current communal tensions and misuse of central forces in several states,” he added.
Sixteen opposition parties met in Patna to streamline a roadmap to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The four-hour meeting concluded with sharp exchanges between Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The AAP said it would not participate in future opposition meetings that include the Congress until the party publicly denounces the central government’s contentious ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi.
Pawar had said recently that there was no discussion about the “prime ministerial post” at the Patna meet. The NCP chief said the meeting instead focused on issues such as inflation, unemployment, and “deliberate attempts” to encourage communal violence in some parts of the country.
At a joint press briefing following the Patna opposition meet, hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the parties said they would fight the polls on a common agenda and with a state-wise strategy. Nitish Kumar had termed the huddle a ‘good meeting’ and added that the opposition parties had decided to fight the elections together. The huddle was attended by opposition leaders including West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and NCP chief Sharad Pawar.
However, the BJP has been dismissive of the opposition leaders’ meet, calling it a photo-op. “Today, a photo session is going on in Patna where entire leaders of the Opposition have assembled on one stage. They want to convey a message that they would challenge the BJP, NDA and Modi ji. I would like to tell them that despite their attempts, unity among them is not possible”, Union home minister Amit Shah had said in a public meeting on the day opposition leaders had met in Patna.
The Party president JP Nadda said the leaders who attended the meeting were those who were jailed by the Congress during the Emergency while Union Minister Smriti Irani said the Congress was rallying opposition parties because it was unable to win elections on its own.