The mega opposition meeting, hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna on Friday, saw 15 parties arriving at a consensus on the need to fight the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 unitedly and deciding to take forward the discussions with a second meeting to be held in Shimla in the Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh in July.
The meeting of the top leadership of opposition parties, many of them chief ministers and former chief ministers, however, also witnessed a discordant note being struck due to the differences between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party over the Centre's ordinance on Delhi's services. AAP, which was conspicuous by its absence at the post-meeting media briefing, issued a statement even as the opposition leaders briefed mediapersons about the discussions, stating that if the Congress did not publicly declare that it will oppose the ordinance in the Rajya Sabha, it will be difficult for the AAP to attend future meetings of like-minded parties where the Congress is present.
After the nearly four-hour long meeting, which began at 11:30 am at the chief minister's official residence at One, Anne Marg, in Patna and was attended by 32 leaders belonging to 15 parties, Kumar said a good beginning had been made towards making a joint opposition fight possible in the Lok Sabha elections.
He said the parties had reached a consensus on the need to fight the elections together. “There is a consensus on fighting elections together. One more meeting will be held, which will be convened by Mallikarjun Kharge ji, where more discussion will be held on the road ahead and there will be a final form to the issue of who will fight where.”
Congress president Kharge said further discussions will look at issues such as the distinct nature of challenges in various states. “We will work together to mount a joint fight in 2024 to oust the BJP from power,” he added.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi described the opposition endeavour as an ideological fight against the BJP-RSS. “It is a fight where we are all standing together. Differences will be there. But we have decided to work together, with flexibility...Soon, we will have another meeting where we will have a deeper discussion on taking forward the process of opposition unity,” he said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the meeting went very well and the three things that came out of it were that the parties are united, that they will fight elections unitedly, and that it will be wrong to describe the parties as the opposition because they are citizens of India and are patriotic.
“I think history has started from here. The BJP wants to change history, but we want to save history,” she said.
She further said she had asked Kumar to hold the first meeting of the opposition parties in Patna because Bihar has been the starting point of many Jan Andolans in the past. “I told him that many meetings have been held in Delhi, but they have not been fruitful,” she said.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who attended a meeting and also addressed the media after a long time since he had been ailing, said it was important for the opposition parties to fight together so that the opposition votes do not get divided. He appreciated Rahul's cross-country march and also his speech in the Lok Sabha where he spoke on the alleged linkages between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and businessman Gautam Adani.
Amidst the declarations of unity expressed by the opposition leaders, the inherent contradictions became evident as, according to sources, there was a brief altercation between Kharge and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with regard to the ordinance. Kejriwal is learnt to have stressed on the need for the Congress to make its stand clear, with Kharge saying in response that a decision would be taken on the ordinance issue when the Monsoon Session of Parliament begins as part of the party's parliamentary strategy. Kharge is also believed to have said the Congress will never support something that is unconstitutional.
In its statement after the meeting, the AAP said in the meeting, many parties urged the Congress to publicly denounce the ordinance, but it refused to do so. The party said senior Congress leaders have hinted that the party might informally or formally abstain from voting on the ordinance in the Rajya Sabha.
“Until the Congress publicly denounce the Black Ordinance and declare that all 31 of its RS MPs will oppose the ordinance in the Rajya Sabha, it will be difficult for AAP to participate in future meetings of like-minded parties where the Congress is a participant,” the AAP statement said.
According to sources, the AAP representatives in the meeting, including Kejriwal, did not say anything about walking out of the meeting on the ordinance issue. The sources also rubbished claims made by the AAP that the other parties urged the Congress to make its stand on the ordinance clear. As per sources, many of the leaders were of the view that the issue could be tackled separately and also pointed out that Kharge had given the assurance that his party would not support anything that is unconstitutional.
The meeting was also attended by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, Shiv Sena-UBT leader Uddhav Thackeray, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, National Conference's Omar Abdullah, PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti, CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and CPI general secretary D. Raja.
