Post upheaval in Maharashtra politics, next Opposition party meeting postponed

New Delhi: The joint meeting of Opposition parties which was scheduled for July 13-14 in Bengaluru has now been postponed and will be held before the beginning of the Parliament’s Monsoon Session.

“We will declare the date very soon. We are talking to all political parties and the date will be announced without any delay,” Congress General Secretary K C Venugopal told ANI on Monday. “The meeting will certainly take place before the Monsoon Session begins,” the Congress leader said. Parliament Monsoon Session will begin on July 20 and go on till August 20.

Launching a scathing attack on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the recent political drama in Maharashtra, Venugopal said the development will not affect the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition.

“PM Modi made a big allegation recently against the NCP leaders for corruption and now we saw this drama. It is a clear sponsored game of ED and their agencies. It will not affect MVA,” Venugopal said.

“We will fight against BJP more aggressively. This is not going to affect opposition unity, this is NCP’s issue. Sharad Pawar is the tallest leader of the party and he will be able to handle the situation. Some leaders changing the party does not mean that the supporters of the party and other members will go with them,” he said.

Earlier, JD(U) chief spokesperson KC Tyagi also told reporters that the Opposition meeting will not be held on the scheduled July 13-14 and though the date has not been decided yet it will be held soon.

On June 23 after the first Unity meeting was conducted in Patna, Bihar, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had reportedly announced the next meeting to be held in Shimla on July 10 and 12.

On Thursday, Sharad Pawar announced at a press conference in Pune that the next meeting of Opposition leaders has been shifted from Shimla to Bengaluru owing to the prevailing weather conditions in Himachal Pradesh.

In the inaugural meeting earlier in Patna, top Opposition leaders, including Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal United (JDU) chief Nitish Kumar, Congress’s Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, among others, had resolved to put up a united fight against the BJP government at the Centre in next year’s Lok Sabha election

Meanwhile, Maharashtra saw a political upheaval after NCP leader Ajit Pawar joined the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance and took oath as Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister on Sunday in a surprise and dramatic political move that changed political equations in the state ahead of Lok Sabha and assembly polls next year and has ramifications for national politics.