Sharad Pawar will also attend the big opposition meeting to be held in Bengaluru. However, he will attend this two-day meeting not today but tomorrow. Recently, his nephew Ajit Pawar broke away from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and joined the Eknath Shinde-BJP government in Maharashtra. Sharad Pawar, 82, was present at the last opposition meeting in Bihar’s Patna on 23 June.
Sources say that Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, whom he has recently appointed as the working president of the NCP, will attend the meeting. Earlier it was being told that Sharad Pawar would not attend the meeting. However, no reason was given for the absence of Sharad Pawar, who has so far been one of the leading players in efforts to form a united opposition to take on the BJP in the 2024 national election.
Top leaders of 24 opposition parties are expected to attend the meeting called by the Congress to chalk out a plan for the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In the first meeting of opposition parties held in Patna on 23 June, 15 parties participated. A source said, “This time we are expecting leaders of 25 parties to attend the meeting.”
The opposition meeting is taking place amid the split in the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the large-scale violence in the West Bengal panchayat polls that left several people dead. The West Bengal unit of the Congress and the Left parties have criticized the ruling Trinamool Congress for the election violence in Bengal.
This time Congress Parliamentary Party President Sonia Gandhi is also likely to attend the meeting. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar, DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are likely to attend the meeting. The two-day session will begin with a dinner hosted by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and have another formal meeting on Tuesday.