Will work together, says Rahul
Top Opposition leaders met in the capital on Wednesday and agreed to work together on the basis of a common minimum programme in an attempt to oust the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the national polls due this summer.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal and Congress president Rahul Gandhi were seen together for the first time at the meeting. AAP and Congress have been bitter rivals since Kejriwal came to power in Delhi in 2015.
Gandhi later told reporters that Opposition leaders agreed to put in place a common minimum programme. “We will work together to defeat the BJP,” he said after the meeting held at Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar’s residence.
Kejriwal called the talks constructive and said the Opposition will work together.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who earlier in the day told an Opposition leaders’ rally that her Trinamool Congress (TMC) may be fighting the Left and Congress in her state but she would stand together with them at the national level, called the meeting “fruitful”. She added, “We will do a pre-poll alliance.”
Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu said there was a democratic compulsion to save India while Farooq Abdullah of the National Conferences termed the meeting “good”.
The meeting came hours after Banerjee, for the first time, said she was open to working electorally with the Congress and archrival, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in the national polls. “Congress, CPM will fight against us in Bengal but will be together nationally,” Banerjee said at the rally at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. She said the situation in the country was worse than during the state of emergency imposed in the 1970s when the civil liberties were curbed. “What will [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi do? Send me to jail, set agencies on us or murder us? We are not the ones to be afraid.”
Banerjee led a sit-in last week against the Centre after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) swooped on Kolkata police commissioner’s home as part of a probe into Ponzi schemes.
The standoff dovetailed with attempts by the BJP ito make inroads into West Bengal, which has the most Lok Sabha seats – 42 – after Uttar Pradesh (80) and Maharashtra (48).