Sharad Pawar, the leader of the NCP, met with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday in the nation’s capital, New Delhi, and promised to take the opposition’s unification process forward.
Sharad Pawar, the leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), met with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday in New Delhi and promised to advance the opposition’s rapprochement process in advance of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
However, the Bhartiya Janata Party poked fun at the outreach, claiming that all of their previous efforts had failed to produce results.
The blooming unity
On Thursday in New Delhi, we saw KC Venugopal, Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Rahul Gandhi. Pawar’s meeting with Kharge took place the day after Gandhi and the Congress president met with Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav to discuss creating a unified opposition platform for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Together, we are stronger. For a better, brighter, and equal future for our people, we stand together. Kharge tweeted about the meeting on Thursday. “We met with NCP President Shri Pawar Speaks ji, along with Shri Rahul Gandhi ji, and discussed the actions that could be taken in the future,” Kharge said.
Later, when speaking to reporters, he said: “You saw that two sides had a meeting yesterday. Congress was present there as well. Pawar ji, who arrived today, agrees that we should try to talk to all of the opposition parties and move forward as a group in unity.”
Later this month, Kharge is expected to convene a summit of the leaders of the opposition parties, excluding the BJP and YSRCP, in Delhi.
Unity against all odds
At the press conference, Gandhi, who was also there, said, “Kharge ji and Pawar ji said that a process has started, and this is just the onset of unifying the opposition. We are all committed to seeing this through.”
Pawar said in a press conference, addressing the reporters, “This is just the beginning. The discussions with other significant opposition parties, including those led by Arvind (Kejriwal) and Mamata (Banerjee), will be starting soon. A handful of us will be sent to start speaking with them as well.”
The NCP leader recently downplayed the claims of fraud and stock manipulation against the Gautam Adani-led Adani Group, but later said that his party will not oppose the demand for an investigation by a joint parliamentary committee by the Congress and 19 opposition parties for the sake of unity. This gives the Congress party’s meeting with Pawar significance.
The fearless BJP
On the other hand, the BJP seemed very confident as it defied the developmental agenda and said that the unity of these parties posed no threat to their victory in 2024.
Furthermore, the party derided the efforts of the opposition parties to unite, referring to them as a “thugbandhan” (coalition of thugs) of parties mired in corruption.
“Election politics in India have historically included alliances and coalitions. The success of an opposition bloc toppling a government depends more on the public mood than the makeup of parties,” a senior BJP leader said while requesting anonymity. Even the BJP has in the past formed alliances with unusual partners, such as the Left.
“The people are aware that these parties have no shared ideologies or policies and create issues in order to sway voters. In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, such attempts were unsuccessful,” said Union Minister Anurag Thakur in Shimla.
