Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi's virtual meeting with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and many other top Opposition leaders has begun this (Friday) afternoon, news agency ANI reported.
The leaders attending the meeting are: DMK's MK Stalin, TMC's Mamata Banerjee, JMM's Hemant Soren, Shiv Sena's Uddhav Thackeray, NCP's Sharad Pawar, Loktantrik Janata Dal's Sharad Yadav, CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury, NC's Farooq Abdullah, NCP's Sharad Pawar and LJD's Sharad Yadav. Nobody has joined the meeting from SP, ANI reported.
The meeting reportedly is a part of the Congress party's efforts to unite various Opposition parties on key issues to set the platform to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Assembly elections in five states.
In the recently concluded Monsoon Session of the Parliament, Opposition parties displayed unity, leading to disruption of both Houses.
The Opposition leaders had given several Suspension of Business notices, Adjournment Motion Notice and had sought a discussion on the Pegasus snooping row, along with the farm laws and other issues.
Today's meeting is being held in the backdrop of the government demanding strict action against those who indulged in unruly behaviour in the Upper House during the passing of the Insurance Amendment Bill.
Speaking to the ANI, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said, "A number of issues including 2024 Lok Sabha elections and upcoming state elections are expected to be discussed in the meeting."
Meanwhile, Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury said, "We will discuss and finalise the strategy to raise the problems faced by the general public and the issues that the government did not allow to discuss in the monsoon session of the Parliament that concluded recently."
"We have to take up the issues related to the common man. The questions are about COVID-19 mismanagement, shortage of vaccine, economic slowdown, unemployment, hunger, price hike of essential commodities, the farmers issue, government privatisation policy and Pegasus snooping row. All these questions were to be discussed in the Parliament and the government did not allow the discussion so, we will go to the public regarding all these issues," Yechury elaborated.
The CPI(M) General Secretary further told ANI that in the opposition meeting, the leaders will discuss and finalise a common strategy to go in public with and to expose the Modi government's "real face".
(With ANI inputs)
