Against the backdrop of political parties, including the ruling BJP and main Opposition Congress, making alliance partners for the Lok Sabha polls scheduled in next couple of months, the Opposition leaders are all set to meet on Tuesday to discuss the strategy and formation of a sub-committee for evolving a common minimum programme.
The meeting to be held at Mohali in Punjab is to be attended by top leaders like Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar,
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu among others.
The decision of a public rally in the Congress ruled Punjab is yet to be formalised but the meeting is crucial as a day later, the Congress will launch newly appointed general secretary Priyanka Gandhi in his first public rally in Gujarat this month end. The same day the Congress has scheduled its apex body Congress Working Committee meeting at Ahemdabad.
The Opposition meeting assumes significance in the wake of both the national parties — the BJP and the Congress — been working overtime to forge alliance and the announcements of Parliamentary seats by the BSP-SP combine who are ready to take on the Modi juggernaut in crucial Uttar Pradesh. Both the national parties have announced their alliances in Bihar, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Moving forward on a united anti-BJP front for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, top Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Naidu, Sharad Yadav, were present in the meeting of Opposition parties at Sharad Pawar’s residence on February 13.
The leaders agreed to work together to prepare a common minimum programme to oust the Modi Government and consider forging a pre-poll alliance.
Banerjee, one of the prime movers behind the effort to cobble together an anti-BJP alliance, had organised a mega rally of Opposition parties in Kolkata on January 19. Banerjee has already stated that the differences of parties while in States should be kept aside as the prime agenda of all the Opposition parties is to target the BJP ruled Centre in the Lok Sabha polls.