Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior party leader Rahul Gandhi have left for Patna, while former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah has reached the Bihar capital as top politicians from the Opposition parties gear up for key “anti-BJP” meeting.
The June 23 meeting has been scheduled to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-BJP front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asserting that they will fight together “like a family” to take on the NDA “one to one”.
News agency PTI quoted its sources as saying that the Opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasize on building a common ground. Leaders of 15 parties including half-a-dozen chief ministers are expected to attend the deliberations.
#WATCH | We all want to fight together against BJP and our agenda is to remove the BJP govt… We will take a decision on this (on supporting AAP against the Centre’s ordinance) before the Parliament session, says Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as he leaves for the… pic.twitter.com/ew2Qzs2Vfq— ANI (@ANI) June 23, 2023
The Opposition picked Patna as a venue for its meeting as it represents the 1974 call of total revolution by Jayaprakash Narayan that toppled Indira Gandhi’s majority government.
The meeting will be hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with an aim to arrive at a consensus to forge a united Opposition front to take on the BJP.
As leaders of several opposition parties arrived in Patna on Thursday, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Jayant Chaudhary decided to skip the conclave due to a “pre-decided family programme”. Chaudhary, however, hoped the meeting will be an “important milestone in the path of opposition unity”.
This came after the Janata Dal (United), which is hosting the meet, said Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati has not been invited to the event.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti were among the leaders who reached Patna ahead of the meeting.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, who was not invited for the big meeting, took a dig at the meeting with sarcastic remark, “Dil mile ya na mile, haath milate rahiye“.
She also used another Hindi proverb “Muh me Ram, bagal me chhuri” and said the opposition parties should have cleared their intentions before the meeting. Mayawati said Uttar Pradesh has 80 Lok Sabha seats and a key to electoral success but the opposition parties do not seem to be serious about their objectives.
Kejriwal wrote to opposition leaders, urging them to discuss the Centre’s ordinance on the control of services in Delhi at the June 23 meeting. However, state-specific issues may not be taken up for discussion in the first such meeting. There is some unease in Congress over the Aam Aadmi Party’s suggestion that Opposition leaders clarify their positions on the Centre’s ordinance.
Reacting to it, Mallikarjun Kharge while leaving for Patna on Friday said, “We all want to fight together against BJP and our agenda is to remove the BJP govt… We will take a decision on this (on supporting AAP against the Centre’s ordinance) before the Parliament session.”
With inputs from News18