On Monday, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal met with Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai. They talked on the need for opposition unity before the presidential election in 2024 and the alleged abuse of government resources by the BJP government to target opposition figures.
“I came here to meet Uddhav ji and to convey the message of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. The message is very clear – in the current political situation in India and Maharashtra, Uddhav ji is fighting against anti-democratic forces. Democracy has been completely sabotaged by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, we have seen that. The ED and CBI are being used to target Uddhav ji’s and other parties,” Kc Venugopal informed reporters just after the meeting.
Mr Kharge and Mr Gandhi met last week with Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav, and Sharad Pawar, the leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), in response to Venugopal’s appeal for a “broader opposition unity.” The two leaders of Bihar also spoke with Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, who was being questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as a witness in the case involving the Delhi liquor policy.
“The opposition will together fight the dictatorship of Narendra Modi. There may be differences in opinion. The Congress, Sena and NCP have their own ideology, but the country is facing bigger issues which we never faced. That’s why we discussed all these issues and we are all in agreement that we all have to get together and fight these people,” Mr Venugopal said.
According to the Congress General Secretary, Mr. Uddhav and Mr. Gandhi will meet in Mumbai at some point, and the leader of the Sena will soon travel to Delhi.
According to Mr. Thackeray, who was in agreement with the visiting Congress leader, everyone has their own ideologies, but their fight is to preserve democracy.
“Hum jab dosti nibhate hai, wo dosti nahi, rishta hota hai (for us, friendship is family),” Mr Thackeray told reporters. “We supported the BJP for 25 years, but they never really understood who is a friend and who is an enemy,” he added.
When there are differences and sometimes even open antagonism among sections of the opposition, the BJP frequently pokes fun at their attempts to band together. Ajay Maken, a leader in the Congress, urged the group yesterday not to “support” or “show any sympathy” for Mr. Kejriwal because doing so would “confuse” the party’s members and “benefit” the BJP.
A day after speaking with Mr. Kejriwal on the phone and stressing the necessity of opposition unity in order to defeat the BJP in the forthcoming general election, Maken made his statement.
A week earlier, Mr. Pawar, whose NCP is a supporter of the Congress in Maharashtra, dismantled some opposition parties’ strident call for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) investigation into the Adani Group-Hindenburg Research dispute, which paralysed all proceedings in the country’s most significant legislative body.
Anurag Thakur, the minister of information and broadcasting, mocked the opposition parties’ attempts to form an alliance and referred to them as a “thugbandhan” (alliance of thugs) on Wednesday.
“People are aware that these parties have no common policies or ideology and make false promises to win elections. Such experiments had failed in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” Mr Thakur said.
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