New Delhi: In a bid to forge unity and strengthen efforts to unite Opposition parties, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has called for a meeting of all key opposition leaders on Friday.
It will be a virtual meeting which is going to be held at 4 pm. The meeting will also be attended by Chief Ministers of Maharashtra's Uddhav Thackrey, Jharkhand's Hemant Soren, West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee and Tamil Nadu's MK Stalin. Besides the CMs, other Opposition leaders who have been invited to this meeting include NCP's Sharad Pawar, CPI's D Raja, CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury and Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav.
The Unity of Opposition was displayed during the recent Monsoon Session of Parliament where 15 parties raised various issues including Pegasus spyware row, farm laws, inflation, fuel price hike and others to take on the Central Government. This made both the houses rarely functional amid the continuous protests and disruptions. Later, both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha got adjourned before time.
READ: Sonia Gandhi invites leaders of like-minded parties for virtual meet
Opposition parties are now trying to prepare a cohesive battle plan against BJP and to keep up the momentum even after the end of the Parliament session.
This meeting can also be seen as a move by Sonia Gandhi to underscore the role of the Congress party in Opposition as questions were being raised over the Gandhis leadership-whether the party would be able to lead the opposition. A buzz also started about Mamata Banerjee to lead the Opposition front in the next General Elections. However, Mamata later denied it.
Recently, Congress party's senior leader Kapil Sibal had also called a dinner party at his residence, inviting a number of Opposition leaders including Sharad Pawar, Lalu Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Sanjay Raut, Omar Abdullah, Derek O'Brien and others. The meeting was even seen as a challenge to Gandhis, as Sibal became successful to call Akali Dal and BJD, who never became a part of the Opposition against the ruling BJP.
