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It was clear that many regional biggies, including Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar and Akhilesh Yadav would skip the ‘AICC-scheduled’ meet. The dinner meeting arranged with alliance partners at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s house on Wednesday will only be of symbolic value now. Parliamentary floor leaders of the Opposition bloc, including some coordinating committee members, who hold joint meetings in Parliament during the session, will attend the meet.
Congress is now hopeful of a meeting later this month after proper consultations and agreement on a mutually suitable date, venue and issues.
ET had reported on Monday that Congress leaders will find it tough vis-a-vis INDIA allies to firm up its position as pivot of the bloc after the party’s 0-3 defeat to BJP in heartland states. The non-Congress Opposition leaders had also indicated that the Congress-proposed Wednesday meeting, more as a knee-jerk reaction to the electoral jolt, was jinxed for many reasons. Some of them found it politically “silly” that AICC scheduled – unmindful of the political symbolism it could project – the meeting to fight the Hindutva surge on December 6, the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. Many regional biggies were upset with Congress brass for not initiating INDIA meetings since September and also for not accommodating some of them with seats in the recent assembly polls. They are now not only playing hard to get but will also try to dictate key issues.
- All
- Madhya Pradesh
- Rajasthan
- Telangana
- Chhattisgarh
- Mizoram
“The AICC deciding on the meeting without taking earlier consent of major regional leaders was symptomatic of the quality of the current political management of the Congress high command,” quipped a non-Congress opposition leader. Incidentally, Rahul Gandhi is reportedly planning a trip abroad later this week.Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee (and her nephew Abhishek) said in Kolkata that she wasn’t aware of the scheduling of the meeting and that she had to attend a family wedding around the same time. Soon after, JDU advertised how Nitish Kumar was not feeling well and the SP about Akhilesh Yadav’s preoccupation. Sources said JMM’s Soren too was pre-occupied. By then, DMK informed AICC that the aftermath of the cyclone in Chennai meant CM MK Stalin won’t be able to make it to Delhi.Making the new schedule public, AICC functionary Gurdeep Singh Sappal said while “a coordination meeting of parliamentary party leaders” of the alliance will be held on Wednesday, “thereafter a meeting of party presidents/heads of the India bloc will be scheduled in the third week of December at a date convenient to all”. O’Brien Pans Adhir Remark on Didi
Congress’ Derek O’Brien is learnt to have registered his protest at a meeting of Opposition floor leaders on Tuesday over Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s recent critical statement in Kolkata about Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee not appealing for Congress victory in the recent assembly polls.
