In Bihar, opposition party leaders got together to talk about presenting a unified front in the coming election. They will come up with a strategy to compete against the BJP with joint candidates in important positions.
The leaders of 17 Indian political groups decided on Friday to join in opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is currently in power under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Although loose coalitions have existed in the past, The Indian Express noted that this is the largest national alliance of parties to challenge the ruling party in power since the 1980s.
Although there will undoubtedly be some disagreements among us, Rahul Gandhi, a prominent member of the Indian National Congress (INC) who was expelled from the legislature in March due to a defamation claim, said, “We have decided we will work together, work with flexibility.”
Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of the eastern Bihar state, hosted the gathering, which took place in Patna, the state capital.
The Janata Dal-United Party’s Kumar stated that “everyone has agreed that we will all work together in the interest of the country.”
“There is an agreement to go together, and there has been an agreement to fight the elections together.”
The opposition parties are attempting a joint platform for the second time to challenge the dominant government party. However, the anti-BJP coalition that is currently being formed is opposed to a government with broad support that has successfully won two terms at the federal level and several elections at the state level.
Leader’s Critique of Modi’s BJP
Senior lawmakers from a variety of parties who are committed to preventing Modi from serving a third term as prime minister attended the conference.
The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, reportedly said, “If this dictatorial government returns this time, there will be no elections in the future.” The Hindu recorded this statement.
However, some party representatives skipped Friday’s post-meeting press conference.
According to The Times of India, the Aam Aadmi Party would not join any coalition with the INC unless it opposed a contentious central government ordinance that has an impact on bureaucrats stationed in the capital.
The BJP, meanwhile, called the opposition’s negotiations a “futile exercise.”
The parties will get together once more the following month to discuss how to defeat the Hindu-nationalist BJP in the elections.
This would include fielding joint candidates in several national elections to stop the BJP from gaining from a vote split among the opposition parties.
As noted by Kumar, the parties would also discuss a joint manifesto stating, among other things, their strategy for the Indian economy.
Before a legitimate opposition united front can take shape, there are a lot of obstacles to overcome, political analyst Arti Jerath told the Associated Press.
“But I think the pressures on the opposition parties to mount a united front against Modi are very, very strong because they have all endured harassment from federal investigative agencies over the past four years, and the BJP has played politics with all of them to split them up and harass their leaders.”
“They all know it will be the end of the road for them if they don’t put up a united challenge to Modi and somehow stop him from coming back,” he added. “The BJP will not really allow any of these opposition parties, particularly the Congress, to survive.”
Will Congress abandon its caution on the Central Ordinance that aims to limit the AAP government of Delhi’s authority?
Will non-BJP parties raise topics of national concern, such as the ongoing situation in Manipur, in addition to common ones, such as the misuse of government resources by the government against political opponents?
What proportion of the grand alliance will be a pre-election agreement, and what proportion will be left to post-election arrangements?
These and other questions’ replies may begin to arrive from Patna.
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