At a rally being organized by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana’s Fatehabad on Sunday, several prominent opposition figures, including the NCP’s Sharad Pawar, Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar and leader of the JD(U), and Farooq Abdullah, the leader of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, will share the dais.
The event to commemorate the birth anniversary of former deputy prime minister and INLD founder Devi Lal will include RJD leader and Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury, and BJP’s Birender Singh.
In a move to forward the process, Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad are set to visit Congress president Sonia Gandhi following the rally. The gathering of many regional satraps is considered a part of efforts to establish opposition unity.
According to JD(U) leader KC Tyagi, “it will be a historic conference that will signify the unification of like-minded forces against the governing BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.”
Even though his son Brijendra Singh represents the BJP in the Lok Sabha from Hisar in Haryana, Birender Singh’s relationship with the party’s leadership has been strained for some time.
Veteran socialist leader Mr. Tyagi has been aggressively working to guarantee that most opposition leaders would attend the demonstration.
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which is struggling for survival in Haryana after a schism when its patriarch Om Prakash Chautala’s eldest son Ajay Chautala founded Jannayak, saw the gathering as a sign of strength.
In the most recent assembly elections, the JJP won most of the traditional INLD voters.
This gathering would bring together opposition leaders from all around the nation on one platform, strengthening party cohesion ahead of the 2024 elections, according to INLD national general secretary Abhay Chautala.
In addition to former Haryana minister Venod Sharma, erstwhile BJP ally and Lok Sabha member Hanuman Beniwal of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party would also be there, according to Mr. Tyagi.
Om Prakash Chautala, the leader of the INLD and a former chief minister of Haryana, has invited several other prominent regional figures, such as Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, K Chandrashekar Rao of Telangana, and Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP, to the public gathering.
Vivek Gupta, a TMC lawmaker, will represent the party at the rally, a senior leader of West Bengal’s ruling party had said on Friday.
Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, has also been invited.
Since he severed ties with the saffron party last month and traveled to Delhi to hold talks with several influential figures, including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, and Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP, Nitish Kumar has emphasized the necessity for unity among the non-BJP parties, including the Congress.
A broad opposition coalition is still being formed, though, since the Congress, which has been an adamant foe of the INLD in Haryana, and several prominent local figures like Ms. Banerjee and Mr. Rao were not present at the gathering.
