With the Janata Parivar joining forces, in principle, with the Congress to revolt against the NDA Government’s controversial land Acquisition Bill, NCP — a major constituent of the UPA — also declared to agitate against the Narendra Modi Government if the Bill is brought in its present form. Senior NCP leader and Rajya Sabha member DP Tripathi said that his party chief and former Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar was the head of the Group of Ministers that had formulated the UPA’s land Bill, which the Modi Government is now trying to amend. “This is not acceptable and thus, we would oppose the Centre’s move,” Tripathi told the media.
Tripathi also said that unity among the Opposition parties was already being seen with the various constituents of the Janata Parivar trying to come together on the issue. Dismissing suggestions that the NCP will help the Government secure the passage of the Bill in Parliament in its current form, Tripathi advised the Modi dispensation to re-think on its action to re-promulgate the land ordinance. NCP had drifted apart from the Congress and voted in favour of the coal and mines bills in the Rajya Sabha before the recess break. When asked to comment on the present form of UPA, Tripathi said that the UPA is “gone” and a new formation is needed to provide opposition to the Narendra Modi Government. “The era of anti-Congressism was over with the BJP at the helm. UPA is gone and a new kind of formation and a new political idiom is needed,” he said.
Noting that the left and the centrist parties will have to evolve a common strategy in the changed scenario, he said that no party can play the “big brother” in the Opposition alliance.
He said that an important transition was underway in the politics of the country and, therefore, the UPA was no longer valid and relevant in such a situation. “It is not “any but many” which will run the government as well as the opposition,” Tripathi said.
