In a bid for third-front, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar and other Opposition leaders.
In a bid to revive third-front ahead of 2019 polls, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar and other opposition leaders.
Mamata held meetings with Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, and RJD MP Misa Bharti.
"When political people meet then, of course, they will discuss politics, there is nothing to hide in that. The Lok Sabha election of 2019 will certainly be very interesting," Mamata said. "Like you need harmonium and tabla for a song, you need people from all communities for the Idea of India to thrive. The BJP is the most communal party; they have communalised the idea of Hinduism," she said.
Mamata said that she met a lot of opposition MPs and will be meeting more tomorrow. "Will meet Jaswant Singh, Shatrughan Sinha etc tomorrow," she said. Stating that she is opposed to Aadhaar, Mamata said, "Why should our fundamental rights to own privacy be denied." "We don't want to isolate any community, want to move forward everyone," She added. The West Bengal Chief Minister also compared Sanjay Gandhi's sterilisation drive and Indira Gandhi's Emergency to demonetization. "Like the Gandhis, Modi has lost all credibility," she added.
Pawar has called a meeting of all the opposition leaders, including those from the Congress, to discuss the strategy for the 2019 Lok Sabha election. A strident critic of the BJP-led central government and its policies, Banerjee had recently called for unity among all the anti-BJP forces to defeat the saffron party in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
On whether she would be meeting UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi during her visit to New Delhi, the chief minister said, "She was hospitalised. Let her recover. I do not want to disturb her." The TMC chief had also met TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao earlier, who called on her to discuss the process of setting up a federal front against the BJP-led government at the Centre.
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