Mamata urges Oppn party leaders to form a core committee to fight BJP

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee urged Opposition party leaders to set up a 'core committee' for better coordination in regard to addressing issues faced by the country currently.

Banerjee had a virtual meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and discussed how the Opposition could be brought under one umbrella against the BJP.

Banerjee also raised some key issues during the meeting, including vaccine for all, repealing of farm laws and withdrawal of unprecedented hike in the prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas among other things.

She urged to keep personal interests aside and work together for a larger cause.

"Forget who is the leader, let's keep our personal interests aside. People of India will lead," she was stated to have maintained during the meeting of 19 Opposition leaders who were present virtually.

It may be recalled that Banerjee had tried her best to set up a common platform against the BJP before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, because of differences, the initiative could not take off.

She further added that all the Opposition parties should be roped in to fight against the BJP. Those who are not allies of Congress should be invited to attend such meetings, she remarked.

The AITC chairperson during her visit to Delhi after her triumphant victory in the Assembly election had met Sonia and exchanged greetings. Banerjee had also met leaders of several Opposition parties during her stay in Delhi.

Banerjee's return to power in Bengal for the third consecutive time fighting all odds that included regular visits of BJP leaders, including the Prime Minister and the Union Home minister and their Cabinet colleagues along with canard spread by the BJP IT cell on social media, has given a pan-India signal that the saffron party can be defeated.

Launching a scathing attack on BJP, she said institutions and agencies were being misused along with the NHRC to target Bengal.

Meanwhile, leaders of 19 political parties on Friday said they will organise joint protests and demonstrations across the country from September 20 to 30 even as they urged the people of the country to save India for a better tomorrow.

After a virtual meeting of the Opposition parties, where they stressed on unitedly moving forward to defeat the ruling BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the leaders also put out an 11-point charter of demands before the government.

"We will jointly organise protest actions all over the country from 20th to 30th September, 2021," they said in a statement.

The leaders said the forms of these public protest actions will be decided by the respective state units of their parties, depending on the concrete conditions of the Covid regulations and protocols in the states.

The leaders also strongly condemned the manner in which the Centre and the ruling BJP disrupted the Monsoon Session of Parliament, refusing to discuss the alleged illegal usage of the Pegasus military spyware to conduct unauthorised surveillance, a repeal of three "anti-farmer" laws, the gross mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and price rise as also the spiralling unemployment.

All these and many other issues affecting the country and its people were deliberately ignored by the government, they alleged.

Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Opposition leaders said his Independence Day address did not focus on a single issue concerning people's miseries.

Earlier during the meeting, Sonia Gandhi urged opposition parties to "plan systematically" for the 2024 national election and "rise above compulsions" to work unitedly as there was no other option.

"We all have our compulsions, but clearly, a time has come when the interests of our nation demand that we rise above them," the Congress president said at the meet.

"The 2024 polls is 'the ultimate goal'. This is a challenge, but together we can and must rise to it because there is simply no alternative to working cohesively together," Gandhi said.

The Congress president further urged opposition parties to begin to plan with the single-minded objective of giving to our country a government that believes in the values of the Freedom Movement and in the principles and provisions of our Constitution.