New Delhi: Moving forward on a united anti-BJP front for the Lok Sabha elections, top Opposition leaders Wednesday agreed to work together to prepare a common minimum programme (CMP) to oust the Modi government and to consider forging a pre-poll alliance.
The meeting hosted by NCP president Sharad Pawar also saw Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal coming together for the first time, while West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu vowed to work together due to “democratic compulsions to save India”.
After the meeting, which took place hours after Opposition leaders shared a dais at an AAP protest on the day of the last sitting of the present Lok Sabha, Gandhi told reporters that Opposition leaders agreed to have a common minimum programme.
The meeting indicates that the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, who have been bitter rivals since the regional party came to power in Delhi in 2015, may forge a tie-up.
Trinamool Congress president Banerjee called the meeting “fruitful” and asserted that “we will do pre-poll alliance if needed”.
Earlier in the day, she had said, “Fight with the Congress will remain in the state. At the national level, we will fight together, this I am saying from the heart… For the greater interest of the country, I am ready to sacrifice my life, my party… sacrifice everything.”
TDP head Naidu said there was a democratic compulsion to save India while Farooq Abdullah of the National Conferences termed the meeting ‘good’.
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