Opposition tunes to Chak De ‘INDIA’; faceless front to take on Modi
Pix credit Twitter @DKShivakumar
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, July 18: The Opposition parties in their meeting in Bengaluru on Tuesday decided to come under the banner of INDIA (Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance). The Opposition leaders struck the correct chords by relegating the issue of the prime ministerial candidate, with the Congress outlining that the party is not staking claims for the coveted position.
Avoiding ‘Secular’ in the name of the Opposition front to deny the Bharatiya Janata Party a handle to beat on the issue of the Muslim appeasement, the Opposition front has adopted ‘Inclusive’ to state its agenda for the country. The front will also aim to exploit the nationalistic fervor in the politics.
Clearly admitting that the BJP will exploit and build narrative against an individual if a face is to be projected, the Opposition front has indicated that it will go faceless into the election. “The Congress is not seeking the prime ministerial position,” Congress president Mallikarjuna Kharge told reporters in Bengaluru.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is learnt to have impressed upon the constituents of the Opposition camp that the BJP should be denied the personality-centric poll platform. Incidentally, the BJP on its social media handle had run a campaign to target Rahul Gandhi, former president of the Congress, to show him in poor light, which was withdrawn after the police in Karnataka filed an FIR against Amit Malviya, the IT head of the saffron outfit.
The BJP had reaped the benefits of a personality-centric poll platform in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, as the popular endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried the day for the saffron outfit. Now that the BJP is being denied a handle to beat the Opposition on a face, Modi on Tuesday launched a tirade against the opponents, accusing them to have come together to protect the vested interests of the families which are in command of the parties. Incidentally, Modi is factually correct, as barring the Janata Dal (United) almost all the outfits in the Opposition camp are yoked to families.
After keeping the political observers guessing on his participation in the Opposition meeting, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) patriarch Sharad Pawar also joined the conclave even while he has lost most of the legislators of the party to his nephew Ajit Pawar, who is now a BJP ally. “This is not a contest between two formations. This is a contest between the idea of India and Narendra Modi,” said Rahul Gandhi at the Opposition meeting.
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