Opposition Meeting: Focus on CMP and plan to run a single candidate for each seat, AAP attends

To directly challenge the BJP in more than 400 Lok Shaba seats, opposition group presidents will outline a national front that will field secular candidates for the 2024 election. This effort will be called the Common Minimum Programme. The opposition meeting, organized by Nitish Kumar, the CM of Bihar, featured six CM of states along with Rahul Gandhi, a former member of parliament, and Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress President. The meeting of the opposition is likely to center on tangible results and a decision on the Front’s name. Some regional leaders aren’t invited to the gathering because they did not clear their stance.

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Opposition Meeting: Focus on CMP and plan to run a single candidate for each seat, AAP attends

Concentrate on CMP and prepare to field just one candidate per seat in the opposition meeting

Initiated by Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, who left the saffron party in August of last year, this meeting is likely to attend by many influential opposition members.

Aim of an opposition meeting

With an agreement on an eventual Common minimum program (CMP) and an outline for the creation of a national-based front, presidents of at least 15 opposition groups at the Centre will begin the process to give a tangible form to the ambition of challenging the BJP directly with “secular” candidates in more than 400 Lok Sabha constituencies.

The JD(U) chief spokesperson K C Tyagi’s statement

The JD(U) chief spokesperson K C Tyagi told the news agency, “The focus of the first opposition gathering of this size in recent years would be on devising a strategy to field one secular candidate against the BJP and its allies in the majority of the 543 Lok Sabha seats that would be up for election.”

The attendees of the meeting
Of the six chief ministers invited to the gathering, Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, M. K. Stalin of Tamil Nadu, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, and Bhagwant Mann of Punjab arrived in Patna by Thursday night along with Dipankar Bhattacharya of the CPI (ML) and Mehbooba Mufti, the leader of the PDP.

The meeting will begin at 11 am at Nitish’s 1, Anne Marg residence, and in addition to Mufti, it includes at least four former chief ministers, Uddhav Thackeray, Farooq Abdullah, Sharad Pawar, and Akhilesh Yadav.

Rahul Gandhi, Congress leader and former MP, and Mallikarjun Kharge, the head of the Congress, are likely to present in Patna on Friday morning.

The meeting of the opposition is likely to center on tangible results

Despite the high-profile cast, the debates will take place against a background of doubt regarding the viability of the primary goal, which is to reduce the field of combat to direct battles with the BJP.

Every anti-BJP element has overlapping spheres of influence, and none seems eager to give up a piece of that influence in the name of the ideal that they claim has brought them together.

There are signs that the meeting may postpone the Main goal of getting the participants to agree to each other’s demands in favor of focusing on potential deliverables like choosing the next round’s date and location and drafting a Common minimum program.

Despite not being in the best of health, former CM Lalu Prasad stayed involved, with Mamata and Stalin traveling directly to his house from the airport to greet him.

Not invited regional leaders

Regional leaders like UP ex-CM Mayawati (BSP), Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao (BRS), Andhra CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy (YSRCP), Sukhbir Singh Badal (SAD), and HD Kumaraswamy (JD-S) will be noticeably absent. They were not invited, according to Tyagi, because “they did not make clear their intention to put up an unrelenting battle against the BJP.”