New Delhi: Against the backdrop of the opposition parties gearing up to two anti-BJP alliances in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, leaders of all parties will once again on Tuesday try not to split the votes benefiting the BJP.
The meeting has been convened at Mohali, a suburb of Chandigarh in Punjab where a sub-committee is to be formed to evolve a common minimum programme (CPM) for “unity of purpose,” a Congress leader said. All top leaders, including Congress president Rahul Gandhi, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerje and Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, are expected to attend.
He said the decision of a public rally in the Congress-ruled Punjab has not been yet formalised, but the meeting will be crucial since it is taking place just before the launch of Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra with her public rally in Gujarat, followed by a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in Ahmedabad. The meeting will discuss the Congress and the BJP working overtime to forge alliances in Bihar, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
At an earlier meeting at Pawar’s residence here on February 13, the leaders agreed to work together to prepare a common minimum programme to oust the Modi government. However, nothing concrete came out in the last one week in preparing the CMP and hence the Mohali conclave will lead to a small sub-committee formation to quickly draft it.
Before that Mamata Banerjee had also organised a mega rally of the Opposition parties in Kolkata on January 19. She is lobbying with the parties that they should keep aside the differences in the states as the prime agenda of all opposition parties should be to target the Modi government in the elections.
