Senior leaders of the 18-odd Opposition parties began deliberations in Patna on June 23 to carve out a common programme and chalk out a strategy for the formation of an anti-Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) front ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Friday's meeting was hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD.
Leaders of major political parties, including AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin and NCP chief Sharad Pawar among others attended the event.
Meanwhile, several BJP leaders slammed the meeting, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah calling it a “photo session”. Senior BJP MP and former Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Modi said, “This is a ‘Gathbandhan of Thugs’. They are preparing to fool the country. They have no principle or policy and all are involved in corruption”.
Political observers say the Opposition meeting is unlikely to produce anything concrete as its main aim is to gauge, who is ready to surrender how much to help stitch a united front against the saffron party.
Rahul has requested all Opposition parties to come together and checkmate the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress leader called on the party workers in Bihar to help the Congress defeat the BJP’s ideology of hate.
“The Congress is working to unite the country and spread love. That is why we have come to Bihar because the DNA of the Congress is in Bihar,” he added.
Taking a cue from Gandhi, Congress president Kharge said the opposition parties should form a united force.
“We will win the whole country if we win Bihar. This is why it’s important that all leaders sink their differences and put up a united fight to protect the Constitution, democracy and the true spirit of the nation,” he added.
Notably, Odisha CM Navin Patnaik, his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekhar Rao, and BSP supremo Mayawati’s absence was a talking point in state political circles. Patnaik’s BJD is all set to go solo in Odisha, the TDP and the YSR Congress are reluctant to join the Opposition camp in Andhra Pradesh. The BSP supremo, however, was not invited to the meeting.
Congress and the Left are unlikely to split in West Bengal, which makes an alliance with Trinamool very difficult.
More importantly, the regional parties want the Congress to vacate more seats for them. But the grand old party, which has contested more than 400 seats in every poll, is not ready to leave much space.
The Hindustan Times quoted DM Diwakar, social analyst and former director of AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies, as saying that the Bihar CM managed to bring so many non-BJP parties on one stage despite huge differences was a success in itself, though the real challenge would begin unfolding as things would progress.
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