United we stand: Congress

At least 26 ‘like-minded’ political parties and 53 leaders are participating in the second-high profile opposition unity meeting hosted by Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar at the Taj West End Hotel.

This meeting will help in deciding their strategy to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and is likely to announce the name of the new alliance, the leaders said.

The Bengaluru meeting comes less than a month after the first such high-profile meeting held at Patna on June 23. The gathering is seen as a boost to the opposition unity, as 11 additional parties will join this two-day meeting.

On the other hand, leaders of 38 parties and 50 leaders have confirmed their participation in a BJP-led meeting of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to be held at New Delhi on Tuesday. The saffron party claims that unlike the opposition parties meeting whose aim is to gain power, the NDA meeting aims at working out programmes and strategies to serve people.

BJP president J P Nadda said that the reach and scope of NDA has increased over the years and that the constituents of NDA were in an upbeat mood because of the positive impact of the Modi government’s schemes and policies.

Nadda said the meeting will see the presence of a host of existing and new BJP allies as the ruling party has worked overtime in recent weeks and months to seal fresh alliances and win back those who had quit the ruling combine.

Taking a swipe at the opposition parties’ meeting in Bengaluru, senior BJP leader and former Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday said that on one hand there is the “tried and tested” leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and on the other hand there is Congress’ “dagger of deceit”.

The BJP also alleged that the Congress was playing second fiddle to AAP. Being a national party, which was so far non-committal on Delhi ordinance, has decided to oppose the ordinance to placate the AAP following which AAP joined the meeting.

Meanwhile, political analysts say that though the opposition is in an upbeat mood over the second meeting, there are many issues that need to be ironed out. Since Congress is hosting this meeting and AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge briefed the participants on the agenda, what needs to be observed is will all 26 parties accept Congress as the main party to lead the proposed alliance?

Another major issue is how many seats will all the parties agree to give to Congress? If Rahul is to be catapulted into the seat of Prime Minister, then the party will have to get a huge number of seats on its own which means that they should get the lion’s share. The most important question is whether these parties which claim they are coming together to protect the country and that they had created a fear in the NDA camp, agree on the name of Rahul as the PM face of opposition?