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Congress leaders react to ex-partyman Kapil Sibal's ‘UPA-3 possible in 2024’ remark
The United Progressive Alliance is a Congress-led coalition that was formed after the party emerged as the single-largest party in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.
Congress leaders Manish Tewari and Pramod Tiwari on Monday reacted to former party leader Kapil Sibal's remark that a Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is ‘very much possible’ after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Former Union minister Manish Tewari remarked that for the UPA to come to power for a third time, opposition parties must unite on the basis of ideologies to oust the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), in power since May 2014.
“The Opposition can give an alternative to this country. So it is important that opposition unity must be based on ideologies and values...claims that opposition leaders can't sit together and there is friction between them are baseless. When opposition unite on the basis of ideologies, then UPA-3 can definitely be formed,” the Lok Sabha MP from Punjab's Anandpur Sahib told news agency ANI.
Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari, on the other hand, described 2024 as a fight between two ideologies, one of which (UPA), he said, believes in Mahatma Gandhi, and the other (NDA), in Nathuram Godse, Gandhi's assassin.
“Today we are here to save the democracy and Constitution...if the BJP stays in power, they will make every state like Manipur, and create unrest on the basis of caste and religion. So there must be an alliance against BJP...what is there in a name (PM face), ideology is the same and that's what matters,” he told ANI.
What did Sibal say?
UPA-3 could be a ‘reality’ in 2024 if the opposition parties have a ‘commonality of purpose, an agenda which reflects it, and that they move forward with the mindset that there needs to be a lot of give and take,’ Sibal told PTI on Sunday.
His statement came days before opposition parties' mega June 23 meet in Patna. The ex-Union minister resigned from the Congress last year, and is currently a Rajya Sabha MP with support from the Samajwadi Party (SP).
United Progressive Alliance
Led by the Congress, the coalition came into existence after the 2004 general elections, in which the grand old party emerged as the single-largest party, doing so ahead of the ruling BJP. Under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi and prime ministership of Dr Manmohan Singh, the alliance governed the country from 2004 to 2009, and 2009 to 2014.
Currently, the UPA has governments in seven states, of which four (Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and Rajasthan) are under direct Congress rule. In the remaining three (Bihar, Jharkhand, and Tamil Nadu), it is a junior partner, with chief ministers from the Janata Dal (United), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) respectively.
