Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday ignoring the Congress will not be right while uniting non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parties. “The process which we want to initiate to bring non-BJP parties together, we want to take the process forward along with the Congress,” he told reporters in Mumbai.
Commenting on Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's recent letter to her non-BJP counterparts and other opposition leaders, urging them to unite to fight the saffron party, Pawar said they had a conversation regarding the matter.
The NCP chief, however, clarified that he and Banerjee have not spoken to other people, and are due to ask the chief ministers of nine-10 states.
“We will have to ask them (for a convenient) date and discuss the venue (for the meeting),” Pawar was quoted as saying by PTI.
In the letter she wrote on March 27, Banerjee called for a meeting of all non-BJP chief ministers and political parties, claiming the saffron camp is using central agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), among others, to “target, harass and corner political opponents across the country”.
“I have the highest regard for the judiciary, But at present, due to certain biased political interferences, people are not getting justice, which is a dangerous trend in our democracy,” the TMC chief wrote in her letter.
{{/usCountry}}“I have the highest regard for the judiciary, But at present, due to certain biased political interferences, people are not getting justice, which is a dangerous trend in our democracy,” the TMC chief wrote in her letter.
{{/usCountry}}Banerjee's call for non-BJP unity came soon after the Calcutta high court ordered a CBI investigation into the Birbhum killings in which nine people were killed following the murder of Bhadu Sheikh, a TMC panchayat leader, on March 21. The central agency has so far held five people in the case, including four nabbed from Mumbai. The high court has also ordered a CBI probe into the murder of Sheikh.
Last week, the NCP too alleged that the BJP is targeting non-BJP states after the ED attached properties linked to Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA Act). Maharashtra NCP spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said the saffron unit is targeting the Maha Vika Aghadi (MVA) regime in the western state as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituent failed to form a government there after the 2019 assembly elections.
The MVA government, comprising the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress, was formed in late 2019 after the Sena split with long-time ally BJP over sharing of the chief ministerial tenure.