Top leaders of 26 opposition parties at their meeting in Bengaluru on Tuesday decided to form an alliance called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, short for Bharat, to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Will happen. Till next year’s Lok Sabha elections. The name was accepted after much deliberation on the second day of the conclave. The 38-party National Democratic Alliance held a meeting in Delhi on Tuesday to chalk out its future plans. On Monday evening, the opposition leaders had an informal meeting over dinner. This was followed by a closed-door meeting on Tuesday which lasted for about four hours. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge announced that a coordination committee would be formed and it has been decided to hold the next opposition meeting in Maharashtra. The opposition meeting was attended by Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Kharge, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, NCP supremo joined. Sharad Pawar, former CM Uddhav Thackeray and leaders of other parties. After the meeting, Kharge said all opposition parties have decided to come together “to save the country” because of the alleged misuse of CBI, ED and other agencies. Worth noting is that, while the opposition alliance has regional leaders like Mamata Banerjee, MK Stalin and Arvind Kejriwal who run the states where their parties are in power, most of the other leaders attending the Bengaluru meeting based their political support base on have lost For example, Shiv Sena (UT) chief Uddhav Thackeray is in the alliance, but most of his party’s MLAs are now part of the NDA under Eknath Shinde. Sharad Pawar attended the Bengaluru meeting, but a large section of his party, led by his nephew Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel, is now in the NDA. The political base of Nitish Kumar, who was the main architect of the campaign of opposition unity, is slipping away. No one knows when which leader in his party Janata Dal (U) will leave the party. Many small parties of Bihar have left their Grand Alliance and joined the NDA. Similarly, the leaders from UP who had dreamed of making Akhilesh Yadav the Chief Minister are now in the BJP camp. Overall, BJP’s strategy is to include more and more local parties with mass base of UP and Bihar in NDA. This experiment proved successful in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Though one will not find big political leaders in the 38-party NDA, there are leaders who have their own support base. If the Lok Sabha seats of UP and Bihar are added then it becomes 120 and small parties get 8 to 9 percent votes. These parties can change the final result in a close contest.
kill your party pawar
There was a rapid development in Mumbai on Sunday and Monday when breakaway MLAs from NCP led by Ajit Pawar met NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and urged him to join the NDA camp, but he was not ready for it. The initial reason given was that the MLA wanted to meet Sharad Pawar, whose wife Pratibha had undergone hand surgery at Breach Candy Hospital. Soon after, the real reason for meeting the patriarch was revealed. Sharad Pawar went to YB Chavan Center on Monday where he met his old allies Praful Patel, Ajit Pawar, Sunil Tatkare, Chhagan Bhujbal, along with 37 MLAs and 6 MLCs. Nephew Ajit Pawar has met his uncle thrice in the last three days. It is natural that these meetings will be minutely analysed. The Sharad Pawar camp is probably saying that since Pitamah’s political dominance is almost all over Maharashtra, both Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel met him to apologise. On the other hand, people in the Ajit Pawar camp may say that both Prafulla and Ajit had said from day one that Sharadrao was God for them and they went to Saheb for help in maintaining unity in the party. The ground reality is different: Sharadrao and Ajit Dada may have political differences, but there is no personal difference between them. Earlier also Ajit Pawar had distanced himself from his uncle, but in both cases he returned home. But this time Ajitdada has taken almost the entire party with him while leaving. It is for Sharad Pawar to decide whether to allow his nephew to return or not. For Sharad Pawar it would mean joining hands with Modi. According to inside information, Ajit Pawar made the offer to his uncle on Monday. The offer was: her uncle can remain NCP president and lead the party, Supriya Sule can remain working president and join the NDA, and she can also join the Modi government as a minister . This will ensure his secure future and Pawar saheb will not have to visit every village at the age of 82 to get votes. The ball is now in Sharad Pawar’s court: accept the offer or leave it.
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