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INDIA coalition’s Mumbai meeting to be held on August 31-Sept 1
NCP chief Sharad Pawar chaired a meeting of THE Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents at Nehru Centre on Saturday afternoon to discuss the preparations for the third meeting of the INDIA coalition
The third meeting of the 26-party opposition coalition, INDIA, will be held in Mumbai on August 31 and September 1 as decided during a meeting of the leaders from opposition parties in Mumbai on Saturday. Key alliance leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and chief ministers of five states are expected to attend the 2-day meeting that will be hosted by thr Shiv Sena (UBT).
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar chaired a meeting of THE Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents at Nehru Centre on Saturday afternoon to discuss the preparations for the third meeting of the INDIA coalition. A committee of five leaders each from three MVA constituents has been constituted to look after the organisation of the meeting to be held at Grand Hyatt in Santacruz. After the dinner to all the key leaders from 26 opposition parties on September 31, the meetings will be held on September 1 followed by a press conference in the evening, said Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena (UBT) member of Parliament (MP).
“Apart from Rahul Gandhi, Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, the meeting will be attended by chief ministers of five states including Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), MK Stalin (Tamil Nadu), Arvind Kejariwal (Delhi) and Bhagwant Mann (Delhi). Since the key leaders are attending the meeting there could be pressure on the traffic management and the security management. We will meet chief minister Eknath Shinde and home minister Devendra Fadnavis to discuss these issues,” said Raut.
Raut said that the meeting will be hosted by Shiv Sena (UBT) with support from the Congress and NCP. Saturday ‘s meeting was also attended by NCP MP Supriya Sule, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, former chief ministers Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan, leader of opposition Vijay Wadettiwar among others.
The INDIA coalition is expected to finalise its agenda and form an 11-member coordination committee and various other committees required to handle various areas as an alliance. “The decision and discussions over them are expected to be taken place in Delhi by top leaders including Mallikarjan Kharge, Congress president, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar among others. The final nod will be given in the Mumbai meeting,” said Kapil Patil, national general secretary, Janata Dal-United (JD-U).
Patole said, “The third meeting of INDIA is significant in the wake of the recent Supreme Court order of staying the conviction of Rahul Gandhiji. Our leaders Soniaji, Mallikarjun Khargeji and Rahulji will attend the meeting. We will put in all efforts to make it a grand success.”
The MVA constituents also discussed the inclusion of their smaller alliance partners in INDIA. “We also discussed about the inclusion of our smaller partners that are with MVA. Though there was no discussion on it, we will discuss it during our next meeting. Constituents like Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, Peasants and Workers Party, Swabhimani Sangathana are part of our alliance in Maharashtra and our endeavour would be to take them in INDIA bloc,” said a senior Shiv Sena leader.
The decision about the inclusion of Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi will be taken at a later stage, said a Congress leader.
Top leaders of the alliance, formed to jointly take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre in next year’s elections, earlier met twice in less than one month – first in Patna on June 23 and then in Bengaluru on July 17-18.
Maharashtra BJP’s vice president Madhav Bhandari said that INDIA bloc’s alliance will not impact the ruling alliance. “They have just changed the ‘label’ of their alliance from UPA to INDIA, without any change in the constituents barring Shiv Sena (UBT). It would not help them in attracting voters and there would be no change in 2019 results of general elections. The INDIA bloc is disconnected from Bharat,” he said.
