INDIA bloc leaders hold parleys to set agenda for today’s meeting
Mumbai: A day before the crucial meeting of INDIA bloc key leaders, top leaders of the Opposition alliance held parleys in an informal setting on Thursday evening to chart out a concrete roadmap and evolve a structure for cooperation among the alliance partners to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, on Thursday, met the leaders of other political parties that are part of the INDIA bloc to decide on the next course of action focusing on the upcoming Parliamentary elections.
In Mumbai, Mamata and Abhishek are learnt to have exchanged greetings with political leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge, Sharad Pawar, Nitish Kumar, and M.K. Stalin, among others.
Before joining the meeting in Mumbai, Abhishek held a meeting with the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Delhi.
Ahead of the dinner hosted by former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, the INDIA bloc leaders met informally and are understood to have deliberated on fixing the agenda of the formal meeting on Friday when key decisions about the alliance’s future strategy would be taken.
The run-up to the meeting saw the Adani issue take centrestage with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi holding a press conference at premises of the venue, where the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) leaders have gathered.
Before the start of the informal meeting, Gandhi was also seen interacting with Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders, such as Aditya Thackeray and Sanjay Raut, as well as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders Supriya Sule and Jayant Patil.
Uddhav Thackeray and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar were also seen engaged in a conversation and sharing light moments ahead of the meeting.
Chief ministers of different states and senior leaders, including West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav and former Jammu and Kashmir CM Farooq Abdullah had arrived here earlier.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary, among others, arrived in the country’s financial capital on Thursday.
The INDIA bloc is likely to announce a 11-membered coordination committee as well as unveil a logo for the alliance on Friday. The Opposition alliance would also announce a list of official spokespersons to take on its rival BJP in debates and discussion on different media platforms.
Ahead of the crucial third round of discussions, the alliance on Wednesday exuded confidence that it would provide a formidable alternative to bring a political change in the country and asserted that it has several prime ministerial faces, unlike the BJP.
The opposition alliance has claimed that it has expanded its ambit to 28 parties by including two regional outfits - the Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWP), a Marxist political party in Maharashtra, and another outfit, on whose name there was no clarity.
Sources said that expansion of the bloc will be discussed and there is a request from three northeast parties Asom Jatiya Parishad, Rajor Dal, Anchalik Gan Manch-Bhuyan to join the alliance and this would be discussed by the opposition bloc.
The leaders have gathered for the third meeting of the alliance, after Patna and Bengaluru, to chalk out their common campaign strategy to take on the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
