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Stalin calls mega Opposition meet in Chennai next week
Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, Bihar’s deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, former CMs Akhilesh Yadav and Farooq Abdullah are among those to attend the meeting.
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin’s proposed meeting on “Social Justice, the road ahead” on April 3 will be joined by at least 14 Opposition parties, in a show of strength amid ongoing efforts to stitch up various political combinations. The organisers are hopeful that Biju Janata Dal and YSR Congress Party will join the meeting.
The meeting on April 3might be the first of a series in various states and comes after 14 Opposition parties joined hands to move court against the “arbitrary use” of federal agencies such as the ED and the CBI.
“Opposition unity is a process that requires one step at a time. We are trying to create a larger common platform on important issues. Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has urged all Opposition parties to come together to defeat the BJP,” said the Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien, one of the leaders involved in the planning.
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Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, Bihar’s deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, former CMs Akhilesh Yadav and Farooq Abdullah, BRS leader K Keshava Rao, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and his CPI counterpart D Raja, O’Brien, and NCP leader Chagan Bhujbal will be present at the meeting that will be held in hybrid mode.
“It has also been decided that Stalin will speak for half an hour and other participants will limit themselves to 7 minutes to ensure everyone gets proper time to express their views,” said another leader.
The Congress party, the IUML, and the MDMK will also attend the meeting on an issue that’s important for each political outfit. One of the Opposition leaders said the AAP has indicated that its Rajya Sabha leader Sanjay Singh will attend the event in Chennai.
While the Shiv Sena is yet to confirm, Opposition leaders believe that if Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik’s party and the YSRCP join the event, it will create a wider impact. That is because the two parties have been supportive of the Narendra Modi government and have maintained distance from many Opposition parties such as the Congress. Some of the political functionaries involved in the planning indicated that the West Bengal CM took the initiative to engage Patnaik’s BJD in Opposition programmes and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar was in talks with Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The event will also try to send a message that the leadership role is not confined to one or two claimants but every constituent in an Opposition club has an important role to play — a feature that has often been missing in earlier third-front formations.
“There is no scope for egos. This is the beginning of a series of events that would be held in different states on many issues. The Chennai meeting also signals that a dominant Opposition player in a state should get support from other parties, a theory of leaders such as Mamata Banerjee or K Chandrasekhar Rao,” said the functionary cited above.
