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The Opposition parties, which met here on Friday at the initiative of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, discussed the possibility of a "Common Maximum Programme" against the BJP ahead of the 2024 elections. The programme, according to a senior leader attended in the meeting, will be to foil the BJP's attempts to "polarise the electorate along communal lines" ahead of every election.
'Common maximum programme’
The senior leader said, in the meeting Congress leader Rahul Gandhi told the Opposition unity cannot be widened and fortified without an "alternative vision." Gandhi told the meeting that issues such as "rampant privatisation" can be checked only with an alternative set of policies. "There were suggestions that this vision should include maximum alternative policy suggestions against the current regime. It will not be a minimum programme, but a common maximum programme," the leader added.
The leaders also discussed the BJP's efforts to use even the developments in Afghanistan in the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. "BJP will try to convert every issue into an electoral agenda so that they can polarise the electorate. We are trying to shift the focus of political debates to livelihood and policy related issues. People, by now, have understood that Modi is utter failure in governance and administration," another leader said.
The leaders have also decided to form a working group to maintain the momentum in the activities of Opposition. "Leaders demanded that they should meet at least once in every month. So, to keep the momentum, a working group of leaders could be formed soon," the leader added.
The parties had also decided to jointly organise protest actions all over the country from September 20 to 30. "The forms of these public protest actions will be decided by the respective state units of our parties depending on the concrete conditions of the Covid regulations and protocols existing in the State. These forms, amongst others, may include dharnas, protest demonstrations, hartals etc," a release from the parties said. "Such forms of protests will help in building the Opposition unity among the cadres too," the leader added.
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