New Delhi: President of the Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi will be sending senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge to represent the party in Trinamool Congress Supremo Mamata Banerjee’s mega opposition rally.
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has also declined the offer to participate in the rally after keeping Banerjee waiting for almost a month.
Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee will be holding a massive rally in Kolkata on January 19, which is supposed to be a mega show of strength for the opposition unity.
According to sources, the Gandhis decided to skip the event after the West Bengal unit of Congress told the top brass they were not in favour of the Congress chief sharing the stage with Banerjee.
Sources also say that the state leadership has told the party chief that Congress workers were ready to fight the upcoming Lok Sabha elections alone, and suggested that the Gandhis should not attend the rally. Sources added that they were also happy that none of the state leaders of Congress was invited by the TMC party to join the rally.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, who is said to harbour PM ambitions, has also not yet responded to TMC’s invite for the rally.
Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao has also decided to skip the rally because he does not want to share a stage with Rahul Gandhi.
Meanwhile, Banerjee has asserted that her opposition rally will see participation of non-BJP parties from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. She claimed that it will be the biggest public meeting in the eastern region in the last four decades.
“Political leaders from Kashmir to Kanyakumari–H D Devegowda (former PM), H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka CM), Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi CM), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party chief), Sharad Pawar (Nationalist Congress Party chief), Farooq Abdullah (National Conference chief)–and many more will be attending the rally,” said the TMC Supremo.
The TMC has forwarded invitations to several opposition parties, including the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the Janata Dal (Secular), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the National Conference (NC) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
Banerjee has been touring the country for the last one year, attempting to stitch together a strong opposition front to challenge the saffron party in the Lok Sabha polls.
