New Delhi: Sounding the bugle for an anti-BJP front yet again, top Opposition leaders, including big names like UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, met here on Thursday and decided to have joint floor coordination in Parliament as well as a “common understanding” over national issues.
The UPA chairperson told Opposition leaders that they should set aside their differences on state issues and come together to take on the ruling BJP at the national level.
“We should altogether adopt a common approach and strategy both inside and outside Parliament... There can be differences among parties in states, but there should not be differences on national issues and we should stand unitedly.
“We have to be alert on the violence being spread over religion and caste and many other issues that are of national concern and we all have to come together leaving aside differences,” senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad quoted Gandhi as saying at the meeting.
Rahul said that though floor coordination among the Opposition parties was working fine in the Rajya Sabha, better coordination is required in Lok Sabha . He is also understood to have said that though there might be some differences among parties at state levels at the national level t he larger goal is to defeat and unite against the BJP-RSS.
This is the first time Mrs Gandhi led an opposition meet after handing over the baton of Congress president to her son Rahul Gandhi.
The meeting was attended by almost all Opposition parties except the Bahujan Samaj Party. Top leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, senior Congress leaders Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge, National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, RJD’s Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav, TMC’s Derek O’Brien, CPI national secretary D Raja and SP’s Ramgopal Yadav attended the meeting.
The meeting was called by Mrs Gandhi after a similar such exercise by Mr Pawar earlier this week saw less participation.
