2024 Lok Sabha polls: Opposition unites to oust BJP
Top leaders of India's 17 opposition parties, setting aside their differences, today decided to put up a joint fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the general elections due early next year.
Addressing a joint press conference after an almost four-hour meeting held in Patna, the capital city of Bihar state, during which leaders of the 17 parties expressed their views, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, the pivot of the anti-BJP alliance, said the leaders will meet in the next few days to give a final shape to their plan.
"We had a good meeting and several leaders expressed their views during the meeting. 17 parties have decided to work together and contest the Lok Sabha elections unitedly," he told reporters.
The meeting was hosted by Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United) and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal. As the host, Kumar presided over the meeting flanked on either side by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad.
Kharge announced that the next opposition meeting will be held in Shimla "to prepare an agenda on how to move ahead together while working in our respective states to fight BJP in 2024."
This was the first meeting of the opposition parties and was seen as a take-off point for them to come together to take on the Narendra Modi-led BJP, reports our New Delhi correspondent.
Rahul Gandhi said a united opposition is going to defeat the BJP in the 2024 general elections and claimed a battle was on between his party's "'Bharat Jodo' ideology and the BJP's 'Bharat Todo' thinking".
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (TMC), her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab's Bhagwant Singh Mann (AAP), Tamil Nadu's M K Stalin (DMK), Jharkhand's Hemant Soren (JMM), Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav, Maharashtra's former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena-UBT), and NCP president Sharad Pawar are among the leaders who attended today's meeting.
Leaders of the PDP, CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML) and the National Conference are also present at the meeting.
However, chinks in opposition ranks came to the fore with Kejriwal staying away from the press conference as his party is cut up by Congress' refusal to promise its support against the Centre's ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi.
The Congress has so far kept its stand ambiguous as to whether it would support the AAP or not when the ordinance is put to the test in parliament.
Samajwadi Party is the only party from Uttar Pradesh, a politically key state and India's most populous region, attending today's meeting. BSP supremo Mayawati was not invited and Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary skipped the event due to a family programme. Uttar Pradesh sends the maximum number of 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
Taking a jibe at the meeting, Indian Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah said, "Today a photo session is underway in Patna. They (the Opposition) want to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi and NDA. I want to tell them that PM Modi will form his government in the 2024 Lok Sabha Polls with more than 300 seats."