Opposition asks Sharad Yadav to lead effort to ‘save composite culture’

Emboldened by the impressive show of strength at Thursday’s ‘save our composite culture’ conference here, Opposition leaders on Thursday appealed to rebel Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav to lead the campaign across the country.

Several top Opposition leaders of 15 parties attended the five-hour long conference. The Opposition’s plan is to keep it a non-political effort under Yadav’s leadership. Yadav, who emerged as a rallying figure, is also slated to visit Patna on Saturday, the day that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is to chair JD(U)’s national executive. The meeting is to pass a resolution to officially join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Yadav, however, will hold a parallel “non-political” conference in Patna on Saturday, said one of his associates. Yadav and some others have protested Bihar CM’s decision to ally with the BJP. There would not be any Rashtriya Janata Dal flag or face on the dais at Yadav’s Patna event, the associate said. Yadav would then visit the floodaffected districts of Bihar.

At the well-attended conference here on Thursday, Congress’s Ahmed Patel, who was accorded a warm welcome for his recent Rajya Sabha win against heavy odds, suggested that Yadav should shape an action plan, constitute a small committee, to spread the message of the need to save India’s composite culture. Patel and others called for Opposition unity to defeat the BJP in 2019.

There were echoes at the conference of the Rajya Sabha election that Patel won from Gujarat. Yadav said a tribal legislator of the JD(U), Chhotubhai Vasava, resisted threats and spurned offers of large amounts of money, to vote for Patel. Yadav spoke about the discrimination of tribals and Dalits under the current regime. Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar and rebel JD(U) leader Anwar Ali, however, said the Opposition should stop talking about the Sangh Parivar efforts at imposing Hindutva, and instead focus on Narendra Modi-led government’s failures and of issues that affect common people.