Senior Opposition leaders to meet in Haryana in show of strength; Congress excluded

Senior Opposition leaders will converge in Haryana’s Fatehabad on Sunday to celebrate late Devi Lal’s birth anniversary in a meeting that is seen as a show of strength of the Opposition even as top Bihar leaders will meet Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in Delhi to explore possible alliances in states ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The INLD headed by Om Prakash Chautala, the son of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, will host the Opposition leaders, barring the Congress and some others, and the programme is seen as part of rejuvenating the party that has not seen much traction in the past few years.

In direct competition with the INLD will be JJP headed by Chautala’s grandson Dushyant Chautala, the Haryana Deputy Chief Minister in a government headed by the BJP, who will be organising a parallel event in Fatehabad.

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Senior Opposition leaders like NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah and DMK’s Kanimozhi will attend the INLD function.

Congress is not invited to the programme as both INLD and Congress are at loggerheads over the question of Jat dominance. Chautala and Haryana Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda are fighting for increasing their space in the community. Parties like CPI and smaller parties are also not invited.

In the evening, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar along with Lalu Prasad and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav will meet Sonia to explore alliances in Bihar and some other states in the 2024 elections.

The Bihar leaders are of the view that there is a need for Opposition unity and the work for it should begin at the earliest.