Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday said Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, KCR and various political parties are trying to find a way out for a united Opposition against Bhartiya Janta Party in upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024. “Wherever any party is strong, election in all those places will be fought under their leadership,” he added.
His comment comes in the wake of TMC chief Banerjee’s sudden change of heart towards Congress as she offered her conditional support to Congress.
Mamata Banerjee’s change of heart
Mamata Banerjee on Monday made a big statement which will have a huge implication on the upcoming Lok Sabha election 2024. “Wherever Congress is strong, we will support it,” asserted Banerjee in a surprise move. Until now, Banerjee had hinted that her party will vouch for formation of ‘Third Front’ or TMC will go solo in the General Election slated to take place in 2024.
“Wherever the Congress is strong, let them fight. We will give them support, there is nothing wrong (in that). But they have to support other political parties also,” Banerjee told reporters at the state secretariat. However, to get support, Congress also has to back other parties, she said. The TMC supremo also made it clear that she expected the seat-sharing formula to give priority to regional players in areas where they were strong. “Strong regional parties must be given priority,” she said.
Decoding her U-turn
The timing of a surprise change of heart suggests that Congress’s landslide victory in Karnataka compelled Banerjee to give a second thought to her earlier stand to keep distance from the grand old party. In Karnataka, Congress proved that it can defeat BJP in a direct fight with the saffron party.
Impact of Karnataka victory
The Karnataka electoral results are the “beginning of the end” for BJP, Banerjee claimed on Saturday. Banerjee also asserted the moral of the Karnataka assembly poll results is that people “want plurality” and that “no central design to dominate” can repress them. Adding for good measure, she said that the poll results were a “lesson for tomorrow”, implying the 2024 Parliamentary polls.
Her party also took a swipe at BJP’s “double engine” rhetoric of the benefits of having the same party rule both at the centre and in the state, a claim TMC had to fight against during elections to Bengal’s assembly in 2021, and quipped that the people of Karnataka had rejected the “trouble engine” government.
Congratulating the people of Karnataka for their mandate in favour of change, Banerjee said that “brute authoritarian and majoritarian” politics has been vanquished.
‘We are with you…’- Akhilesh tells Nitish who is on mission 2024
Ramping up efforts to forge Opposition unity, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on April 24 met Yadav who extended support to the JD (U) leader in his “campaign” aimed at removing the BJP from power in the next General Election.
Kumar said talks were on to unite as many parties as possible and they will sit together and decide on the leader, adding that he is not looking for anything for himself and will work for the country’s good.
No welfare work is being done by the present dispensation which is only relying on publicity, the Bihar chief minister said attacking the BJP after meeting Yadav at the SP office in Lucknow, hours after he held talks with his West Bengal counterpart Banerjee in Kolkata.
Backing Kumar’s views, Akhilesh Yadav alleged that due to the “wrong economic policies” of the BJP, the poor are suffering and price rise and unemployment are “at an all-time high”.
Asked if any decision has been taken on who will lead the joint front, Kumar said, “No, once the unity takes place, the leader will be decided.
And whosoever becomes the leader will work in the interest of the country.”
(With agencies inputs)
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