New Delhi:
RJD leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav today said the JD(U), Akali Dal, and the Shiv Sena left the BJP-led NDA to save the Constitution and democracy.
Addressing an INLD rally to mark former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal’s birth anniversary, he also accused the BJP of making false claims and promises and dubbed the party as “Badka Jhuta Party” (big lying party).
He said Home Minister Amit Shah spoke of an airport in Purnea in Bihar at his recent public meeting there, even though there is no airport in the city.
Speaking next, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called for uniting all opposition parties, including the Congress and the Left, to take on the BJP. He said this “main front of opposition” will ensure that the saffron party loses badly in the 2024 general elections.
If all non-BJP parties unite, then they can get rid of those who are working to destroy the country, Mr Kumar said, adding that there is no fight between Hindus and Muslims and accused the BJP of trying to create disturbances.
“My only wish is that we all need to come together at the national level… We need to bring together more parties,” he said.
In a show of strength for the third front in the run up to 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Indian National Lok Dal of Haryana has invited a galaxy of opposition leaders to its ‘Devi Lal Saman rally’.
Top opposition leaders including Nitish Kumar, Sharad Pawar, KC Tyagi, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Sitaram Yechury, Tejashwi Yadav, NC leader Farooq Abdullah, and Shiv Sena’s Arvind Sawant are expected to attend.
“It will be a historic meeting that will mark the consolidation of like-minded forces against the ruling BJP in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” JD(U) leader KC Tyagi has said.
The Congress is. however, conspicuously absent. The grand old party and INLD were arch rivals in Haryana. But the NLD has also said that to keep the BJP out of power both at the state level and the national level, it is ready to even join hands with the Congress now.
INLD was one of the strongest parties in Haryana, and now it is fighting for its survival in the state following a split after its patriarch Om Prakash Chautala’s elder son Ajay Chautala formed Jannayak Janata Party, a BJP ally. Through this spectacle, the INLD is also eyeing on its own revival in state politics.
The Om Prakash Chautala-led party has just one MLA in the Haryana Assembly.
Notably, Nitish Kumar, who is trying to bring in Opposition parties under one umbrella after ending its alliance with the BJP in Bihar, will meet Sonia Gandhi in Delhi soon after this rally. RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav will also join Mr Kumar in this meeting.
BJP leader Birender Singh, whose equation with the BJP leadership has soured for some time even though his son Brijendra Singh is a Lok Sabha member of the party from Hisar in Haryana, is also expected to attend.
Lok Sabha member and Rashtriya Loktantrik Party’s Hanuman Beniwal, a former BJP ally from Rajasthan, will also attend the rally besides former Haryana minister Venod Sharma, KY Tyagi said.
INLD leader and former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala has also sent invitations to several other regional bigwigs, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu, for attending the public meeting.
TMC MLA Vivek Gupta will represent the party at the rally, a senior leader of West Bengal’s ruling party had said on Friday.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has also been invited.