Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 17: Top leaders of 24 opposition parties have started assembling in Bengaluru for the meeting convened by the Congress to chalk out a plan for the upcoming Monsoon Session of parliament and initiate for creating a joint front the 2024 Lok Sabha polls against the ruling BJP.
For the first time, the former Congress president Sonia Gandhi will be attending the opposition conclave. She and her son, also former Congress president, Rahul Gandhi were welcomed when they arrived in Bengaluru on Monday by the incumbent Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, the Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar.
The opposition leaders are expected to hold talks on ironing out their differences and project a united front in next year’s general elections. There is a proposal to set up a subcommittee for drafting a common minimum programme and communication points for the Opposition alliance for the 2024 general elections, sources said. The opposition leaders also plan to suggest a name for the alliance.
After deliberating for days, the Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday announced that they too would participate in the meet. AAP made the announcement just hours after the Congress came out in support of the party’s campaign against a contentious central order that wrested back control of Delhi’s bureaucracy.
Besides Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, among others attending the meeting included West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar, the Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin, the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, the Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, the CPM General secretary Sitaram Yechury, Samajwadi Party chief former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and several others.
The Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his Andhra Pradesh and Odisha counterparts Jagan Mohan Reddy and Naveen Patnaik respectively, and the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu are not expected in the opposition conclave.
Between the first opposition meet held in Patna on June 23 and the second in Bengaluru, a lot had happened in the opposition front including the split in the Sharad Pawar-led NCP and the violence in West Bengal panchayat polls that claimed many lives with state units of the Congress and Left parties accusing the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Mamata Banerjee government of oppression. Fifteen parties attended the last meeting for opposition unity hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna on June 23.
This is the second time in the past two months that Bengaluru will host a number of political leaders since several of them gathered for the swearing-in ceremony of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. The sources in the Congress, which is hosting the second meeting, said more meetings are likely to be held before arriving at a consensus on seat sharing, probable common programme and strategy to highlight the failure of BJP government at the Centre.
Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kharge on Monday said the PM had claimed that he alone was enough to take on the Opposition then why was he feeling the need to get 30 parties together. Kharge claimed that seeing the Opposition getting together, the BJP was “rattled” and was now bringing together parties that have already splintered, in order to show numbers.
Speaking with reporters here, Kharge said the Opposition parties have been meeting and coordinating for a long time, even in Parliament, but he had not heard of the 30 parties of the NDA meeting before. Who are these 30 parties, what are their names, are they all registered with the Election Commission.” Kharge’s comments were a reference to the prime minister’s remarks in February in Rajya Sabha wherein he had asserted that he alone outweighs all those who take turns to shout slogans to oppose him.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah asserted that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will win the Lok Sabha election next year, and the BJP’s downfall has started from Karnataka, where the party lost the Assembly elections in May. Siddaramaiah claimed the BJP will lose the Parliamentary elections as the party will not get a clear mandate.
“After Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, price rise started, and the economy (was) destroyed. It has become difficult for the farmers, Dalits and economically weaker sections to survive. People have also lost their peace due to communalism. People are living in fear. This is the BJP’s gift,” he told reporters here.
But Yechury dropped a bombshell ruling out any alliance with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and said secular parties along with the Left and the Congress would take on the BJP as well as the TMC in the State.
Speaking to reporters Yechury referred to the 2004 model which brought the Left-Congress coalition to power at the Centre. “The situation is different in every state. The effort is to ensure that in these situations the division of votes which gives BJP the advantage should be minimal. This is not a new thing. Like in 2004, the Left had 61 seats, out of which we won 57 defeating the Congress candidates…then Manmohan Singh government was formed and it ran for 10 years.
“Mamata and CPI(M) will not happen. There will be secular parties along with the Left and the Congress in West Bengal which will fight against the BJP and TMC,” the CPI(M) general secretary said, adding that at the Centre what form this will take will be decided later.
This was precisely what the BJP took a pot shot at the opposition conclave. Taking a swipe at the opposition parties’ meeting in Bengaluru, senior BJP leader and former Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on one hand there was the “tried and tested” leadership of Modi and on the other hand there was Congress’ “dagger of deceit.” He said it was a case of unity among parties that were suffering from depression after electoral defeats and there was “guarantee of separation.” “The Congress’ cunning character is to give power to one family and create a tower of trouble for others,” Naqvi alleged.
The Opposition meet coincides with a mega meet of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in New Delhi on Tuesday, an exercise aimed at flexing numbers ahead of 2024 general elections. The NDA expects nearly 30 parties would reiterate their support to the alliance before the Monsoon Session begins on July 20.
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