Farmers Movement Archive

Opposition meet focuses on strategy for 2024

Congress president Sonia Gandhi asked India’s top Opposition leaders to rise above individual compulsions “in the interest of the nation” and start planning “systematically” as the “ultimate goal is the 2024 Lok Sabha elections”, in her first formulation for the next national elections, according to her party.The parties are likely to form a core committee, meet at regular intervals and might even expand this grouping to woo other non-NDA outfits—indicating their intent to start preparing even as the Lok Sabha elections are three years later. Traditionally, Opposition parties have never joined hands or started poll preparations so much in advance.Addressing virtually a meeting of 19 parties here on Friday, Sonia, who had a pivotal role in forming the UPA in 2004, told the Opposition that the “single-minded objective” should be to give India a government that “believes in the values of the Freedom Movement and in the principles and provisions of our Constitution”. She also expressed confidence that the new-found unity of Opposition in Parliament “will be sustained in future sessions” but reminded that “the larger political battle has to be fought outside it”.The first meeting, however, also saw some political jockeying. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, trying to build a wider Opposition front, strongly pitched for inclusion of other non-NDA parties. “Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI(ML) should be invited. Our fight is against the BJP. For these meetings, even those not allied with Congress must be invited,” she is said to have told those present. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury argued that only parties present in Parliament have been invited.Sonia acknowledged that it would be a “challenge” to keep the group together. “Together we can and must rise to it because there is simply no alternative to working cohesively. We all have our compulsions, but clearly, time has come when the interests of our nation demand that we rise above them,” she said, ahead of a daunting task of bringing various regional outfits with conflicting interests to form a grand coalition to take on a formidable Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP in the next elections.“The 75th anniversary of India’s Independence is indeed the most appropriate occasion for us to reaffirm our individual and collective resolve. Let me say for its part, the Indian National Congress will not be found wanting,” she said.Rahul Gandhi, who spoke at the fag end of the meeting, described the BJP’s vision and said the Opposition needs to offer an alternative vision to the people.In the meeting that lasted two and a half hours, Yechury accused the Modi government of destroying constitutional values and replacing them with RSS doctrines. “We have to firmly decide to save India today. All constitutional bodies, election commission, Parliament, CBI, ED are being undermined by this government.”While all leaders spoke about Pegasus, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren tried to say that farm laws and price rise are more important issues than Pegasus. Some Opposition leaders quickly tried to describe how Pegasus can infiltrate the personal space of a person. RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav suggested that the caste census should be part of the joint statement even as Banerjee suggested that a joint statement (prepared by Yechury) should not be drafted in advance. She also suggested to pick just 5-6 issues and reiterated that the leadership would not be an issue as “people of India would lead” them.“Of course, the ultimate goal is the 2024 Lok Sabha elections for which we have to begin to plan systematically with the single-minded objective of giving to our country a government that believes in the values of the Freedom Movement and in the principles and provisions of our Constitution,” Sonia said.The core committee, an idea tossed by Banerjee and Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, is likely to be formed and meet once a month to take stock of the political situation.In the joint statement, the Opposition parties demanded augmenting “all vaccine production capabilities in India, procure vaccines globally and speed up the free universal mass vaccination drive immediately”, free cash transfers of ₹7,500 per month to “all families outside the income tax bracket” and “free food kits containing all essential commodities of daily consumption to all the needy”.The parties also demanded that the government “withdraw unprecedented hikes in central excise duties on petrol & diesel, reduce prices of cooking gas and essential commodities, particularly cooking oil, and control galloping inflation” and “repeal the three anti-agriculture laws and compulsorily guarantee MSP to farmers”.In a statement issued in the evening, the TMC said that Mamata Banerjee proposed the “constitution of a core committee to rightfully address the issues that the people of India are facing”.Thackeray spoke of fighting together against the ruling party to save democracy in the country, senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut said.Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, who was also in the virtual meeting, called for time-bound collective efforts by Opposition parties to deal with the issues the country is facing.Raut, who was also part of the meeting, said, “Uddhav ji said that the unity among the Opposition parties must remain intact. Besides that, he said that we have to give people the confidence that the political parties that have come together will remain united. Uddhav ji spoke about fighting together and saving democracy.”Pawar, meanwhile, said that the current scenario in India appears very gloomy. Farmers have been protesting for many months and it is an anguishing picture for a democratic country.Samajwadi Party (SP), one of the parties invited, did not join the meeting. “Our national president Akhilesh Yadav ji already had meetings and events scheduled for the day at the party office in Lucknow. SP didn’t join the (Sonia Gandhi’s) meeting,” said party spokesperson and former UP minister Rajendra Chaudhary.

Hindustan Times

21-08-2021

India