Indian Opposition again attempts anti-Modi platform |
Indian political stalwarts of yesteryears have embarked on yet another adventure to align the Opposition parties against Bharatiya Janata Party`s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sharad Pawar, head of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is teaming up with Yashwant Sinha, former BJP veteran turned supporter of Mamta Banerjee`s Trinamool Congress (TMC). The attempt is to forge an alliance and create a wishful platform for Indian Opposition parties. The objective is to target upcoming Assembly elections in states of India in 2022, most importantly the largest state of Uttar Pradesh. Pawar and Sinha feel emboldened by the Opposition recently scoring victories in state elections - TMC in West Bengal, AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and the Communists in Kerala. Pawar and Sinha have called a meeting of political leaders from the anti-BJP spectrum for a discussion on the political situation in the country on 22nd June. Surprisingly, the Congress Party has not been invited as a party. But an invite has been issued to three important national leaders out of the Group of 23 of Congress - Kapil Sibal, Vivek Tankha and Manish Tiwari. Two of them declined and one of them is not in the capital. The meeting was announced soon after well known poll strategist Prashant Kishor met Sharad Pawar on 21st June in Mumbai where they discussed Opposition unity. It will be organised under the forum "Rashtra Manch" launched by Sinha in 2018 to take stock of the "present national scenario". Sinha spelt out the message behind the meeting when he listed the "failures" of the Modi government topped by Covid-19 mismanagement and asked the opposition parties to come together to defeat the Modi government. Ghanshyam Tiwari, a member of the Manch, and national spokesman of Samajwadi Party, said "We picked the leaders first and not parties, based on their active participation in public forums on issues of national interest beyond the narrow confines of the party line”. Sinha denies that the forum is for non-Congress and asks the party to join in the unity efforts.
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