Janata Parivar trains guns on Prime Minister

The well-attended ‘mahadharna’ against the Narendra Modi government had the city’s roads clogged for a larger part of the day as despite the chill people turned up in large numbers.

Though it was initially planned to announce the merger of Socialist groups into one entity, given the enthusiastic turnout, the regional satraps decided to use the forum to declare their common intention to prevent BJP from coming to power in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. 

Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav, Janata Dal-United’s Sharad Yadav, former Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, former Prime Minister and Janata Dal Secular head HD Deve Gowda took turns at slamming the Modi government for not fulfilling its promise of bringing back black money and creating jobs for youth.

They also charged the BJP and the the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) for unleashing a communal agenda to divert attention from the government’s failures. The congregation received a shot in the arm when Tariq Anwar and DP Tripathi from the NCP also shared the dais while Mamata Banerjee sent a letter of support to the leaders through her Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’ Brien. A statement issued by the Trinamool Congress said that the party supports the solidarity initiative of Janata Parivar.

Incidentally, TMC’s arch rivals in West Bengal, the Left Front too joined the solidarity meeting. The statement of support from the Left was however not as unequivocal as TMC’s.