New Delhi: The country’s Opposition parties will meet for a second time in Bengaluru next month in the ongoing attempt to hammer out a common agenda before the general elections in 2024.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar said Thursday that the next meet would be in the Karnataka capital on 13 and 14 July.
In the recent state polls, the Congress unseated the BJP government in Karnataka with a clear majority.
The first meeting was held in Patna on 23 June, hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who has recently made a strong pitch for Opposition unity ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
The meeting was attended by top leaders of 17 parties and it was decided that these parties will unite to fight the next polls.
After the meeting, Rahul Gandhi had said there would be differences among them “but all leaders have decided to work together”. “There is an attack on India’s foundation, institutions, and its voice by the BJP and RSS. I have said before that this will be a war of ideologies. We will protect our like-minded ideology,” Gandhi said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banjeree had talked about three definite outcomes of the first meeting. “We are united, we will fight unitedly and we are not just the Opposition. We are citizens, we are patriotic, and we also worship Bharat Mata. We burn when Manipur burns,” she said.
Also read: ‘Aimed at polls’: NCP takes swipe at Modi for UCC push, but is ‘neither for nor against’ it as of now