(From Left) Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik. (News18)
Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray, Hemant Soren, Arvind Kejriwal, MK Stalin, D Raja, Sitaram Yechury and Dipankar Bhattacharya will attend the meeting
After two failed attempts, the much-awaited opposition meet now seems to be coming together as June 23 was announced as the fresh date on Wednesday evening by JD(U)’s Lalan Singh and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav in a joint press conference.
Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh said, “After talking to everyone, it is decided that all opposition parties will meet on June 23. The meeting will be held in Patna. The parties will unite against BJP.”
Mamata Banerjee (TMC), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Uddhav Thackeray (Shivsena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackey), Hemant Soren (JMM), Arvind Kejriwal (AAP), MK Stalin (DMK), D Raja (CPI), Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) and Dipankar Bhattacharya (CPI-ML) will attend the meeting.
The date was postponed from June 12 because both Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi expressed their inability to attend the meeting then. DMK president Stalin too had conveyed that he would not be able to come on the scheduled date. However, now the leaders have agreed to attend the mega meet in Patna on June 23.
While the Opposition tries to put up a united front, the uncertainty regarding three crucial regional players may throw a spanner in the works. News18 takes a look:
K Chandrasekhar Rao
During the important announcement, the name of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was not taken by both the leaders in the press conference. A highly placed source told CNN-News18 that KCR hasn’t made up his mind about joining the ‘one against one’ bloc since there are differences with Congress. In a public address in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool recently, KCR slammed Congress and told people to ‘dump the party in the Bay of Bengal’.
Moreover, KCR has occupied himself with the expansion of his Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party in other states. In Maharashtra, BRS has opened its offices in all 288 constituencies and is planning to open regional offices in Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur. The BRS has also planned expansion in Madhya Pradesh. It is also unlikely that KCR will be comfortable with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar after his visit to Patna in August last year when KCR told Kumar to sit down as he tried to leave the presser following questions on the Opposition’s prime ministerial face. KCR had said: “It is too early to say. Let us first sit together.” The BRS has nine Lok Sabha and seven Rajya Sabha MPs at present.
Naveen Patnaik
The 76-year-old veteran politician has always been on the fence about supporting the BJP-led NDA or the Congress. In the last few months, Nitish Kumar has held a series of meetings in a bid to bring together opposition parties on a common platform. An attempt was also made on May 9 by the Bihar chief minister but in vain as ‘no politics was discussed’ in the meeting between him and Patnaik in Bhubaneswar. “Ours is a known friendship and we were colleagues many years ago. No discussion was held on any alliances today,” Patnaik said after the meeting.
Kumar had said, “My relation with his (Patnaik’s) father Biju Babu and Naveen ji is very old. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we could not meet. No political discussions were held. We have good relations and there is no need to discuss any politics.”
Patnaik has always played safe in the past. Besides, he has no interest in national politics and is happy being the chief minister of Odisha, according to his close aides. The politics of equidistance has always served him well. Amid the Opposition’s decision to boycott the inauguration of new Parliament House, Patnaik had announced his participation in the event. BJD has 12 Lok Sabha MPs and nine Rajya Sabha members.
N Chandrababu Naidu
The outcome of the recent Karnataka polls seems to have had a spill-over effect on neighbouring Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Telugu Desam Party chief and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu flew down to Delhi on June 3 to hold parleys with the top BJP leadership.
Naidu’s meeting with Amit Shah sparked talks in political circles. It was the first meeting between Naidu and Shah after a bitter parting of ways between the two parties in 2018 when TDP accused the Modi government of showing indifference towards the party’s demand for granting special status to Andhra Pradesh.
According to political observers, Naidu is trying to get into an alliance with the BJP as he finds difficult to stand against the YSRCP and chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy who is very popular in the state.
It will hence be uncertain for Naidu to attend a united opposition meeting at a time when he is trying to gain the confidence of the BJP. TDP has one Rajya Sabha member and three in Lok Sabha.