Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday hinted that Congress is ready to put aside its differences with the Aam Aadmi Party for the sake of a united Opposition against the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. According to sources, soon after the mega Opposition meeting in Patna, Rahul Gandhi said: "The Congress is ready to make sacrifices to save the country." Gandhi's statement came amidst the ongoing dispute between Aam Aadmi Party and Congress over the Centre's Delhi ordinance. He, however, did not outrightly condemn the ordinance.
Due to this, the AAP hit out at the Congress right after the meeting, questioning its "silence" on the issue.
Top leaders of Opposition parties on Friday held discussions to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-BJP front to face the Modi juggernaut in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The meeting hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD ended after several hours of deliberations. As the host, the Bihar CM presided over the meeting, flanked on either side by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad.
More than 30 leaders of 15 Opposition parties participated in the meeting at the Bihar chief minister's 1, Aney Marg, residence in Patna, news agency PTI reported citing sources.
The united Opposition front is going to fight the BJP and restrict it below 100 seats, asserted the Opposition party leaders after the mega meeting held on Friday. According to sources, they said their parties have overcome past differences to stand together against the BJP.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar said: "Uddhav Thackeray and NCP fought elections against each other for the last 25 years but even then, we came together."
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said in the meeting that if all the parties wanted to win and restrict the BJP to below 100 seats in the Lok Sabha election, they have to put aside differences and stay together. "BJP will definitely be defeated," he said. The next meeting of the opposition will be held in Shimla at a convenient date.
The meeting is being seen as a starting point for the Opposition parties to come together to take on the Narendra Modi-led BJP. Therefore, a basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity were expected to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now, the PTI sources said.
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Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, party leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (TMC), her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab's Bhagwant 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 the first high-level Opposition meeting.
Leaders of the PDP, CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML) and the National Conference also participated in the meeting.
Sharing visuals from the meeting, Kharge, in a tweet in Hindi, said, "Protecting the Constitution and democracy is our sole responsibility. Our meeting to give a new direction to the country."
However, fissures in the Opposition ranks were visible with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) demanding that the Congress clarify its stance over the Centre's ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi. Keeping cards close to its chest, 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 test in Parliament by the BJP-led Centre.
Telangana Minister K. T. Rama Rao also demanded that the Congress answer if it supports "this anti-federal bill that govt of India is trying to enforce on the people of this nation, especially in the case of Delhi govt."
"Today, the unity of political parties is not that important, rather it is important to unite people on the issues prevailing in the country. Congress and BJP are responsible for the problems our country is facing today. If political parties unite taking BJP or Congress along with them, it will not benefit the country," KTR further stressed.
Meanwhile, the BJP dismissed the meeting with several senior leaders like Amit Shah, JP Nadda, and Smriti Irani expressing confidence in the NDA's prospects for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.