Hyderabad: Uphill task for Opposition unity

Hyderabad: The opposition parties first want to establish their united strength by organising public rallies across the country. It will constitute sub-committees which would be taking decisions on issues that would be allocated to them. This meeting is also likely to have preliminary discussion on the issue of sharing of seats at the time of Lok Sabha elections. But even before the start of the opposition meeting, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury ruled out any alliance with the TMC in West Bengal. He said that secular parties along with the Left and the Congress will take on the BJP as well as the TMC in the state.

He said that the Bengaluru endeavour is to reduce the split in opposition votes, and they will chalk out a plan to fight together.

Before firming up the alliance, there are several issues that need to be ironed out. Leaders like Yechury and others feel that since each regional party has its own stakes in the states, which would agree to accommodate others and to what extent would matter a lot and this exercise needs to be taken up first or else it could lead to problems at a later stage. It is not necessary that the Karnataka formula would work everywhere, the leaders say.

AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that seeing the opposition getting together, the BJP was “rattled” and was now bringing together parties that have already splintered, in order to show numbers. “The PM had said ‘Main akela kaafi hoon saare Opposition ke liye’ while speaking in Rajya Sabha, then why is he bringing together 30 parties.

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav says, “...2/3rd of the population is going to defeat BJP. I hope that the people of the country will give BJP a massive defeat...I am receiving inputs from all corners of the country that the BJP will be wiped out...”

Among those who are attending the Bengaluru meeting are Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, NCP’s Sharad Pawar, AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal, DMK chief M K Stalin, leaders of Left and some regional outfits, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, RJD chief Lalu Prasad, Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav Akhilesh Yadav (SP), Farooq Abdullah (NC) and Mehbooba Mufti (PDP), besides Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), D Raja (CPI) and Jayant Chaudhary (RLD).

The parties which will be added this time are MDMK, KDMK, VCK, RSP, CPI-ML, Forward Bloc, IUML, Kerala Congress (Joseph) and Kerala Congress (Mani), besides the Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) of Krishna Patel and Tamil Nadu’s Manithaneya Makkal Katchi (MMK) led by M H Jawahirullah.