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Non-BJP parties could field common candidates: Chidambaram
The comments came days after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who has spearheaded attempts to bring together non-BJP parties, held fresh talks with Congress leaders
Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday said the work for bringing non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parties together ahead of the 2024 national polls was going on and they could field common candidates on 400 to 450 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats if they succeed.
“Our party [Congress] line is that all the non-BJP parties must get together as far as possible. If they come together, then it is possible that on 400 to 450 seats, we can field one common candidate against the BJP but that is still a desire; an aspiration,” said Chidambaram, who was in Mumbai as part of the Congress’s campaign to highlight the BJP-led Union government’s failures as it completed nine years in office.
He said non-BJP parties were meeting in Patna on June 12 and that it is a work in progress. “The opposition is beginning to realise more and more that it is absolutely necessary to unite and put up a united opposition front against the BJP.”
The comments came days after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who has spearheaded attempts to bring together non-BJP parties ahead of the 2024 polls, held fresh talks with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi to discuss a broad strategy and prepare the ground for the June 12 meeting. The meeting between Kharge and Kumar was their second in as many months.
On Sunday, Kumar said the meeting to chalk out a plan for a unified fight against the BJP in the 2024 national elections will be held in Patna tentatively on June 12.
Twenty-two parties, including the Congress and Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament building on Sunday, saying President Droupadi Murmu instead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have led the ceremony for it.
Kumar has held a series of meetings for the united front since he ended ties with the BJP in August last year and formed the government in Bihar in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, and the Communist parties.
At least 18 parties were expected to attend the Patna meeting. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee suggested the meeting when she met Kumar in April. Banerjee, who has also backed Kumar’s “One-On-One” candidate strategy, invoked socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan’s “Total Revolution” movement against the Congress government in the 1970s while suggesting the meeting in Patna.
Kumar has also held meetings with Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, etc.
