CHENNAI: It seems the Opposition parties are going all guns blazing to corner the BJP-led Union government over various issues plaguing the country. The unity that the parties have shown inside the House is likely to be extended outside as well with TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee meeting various Opposition leaders during her five-day visit to the national capital. She met with DMK MP Kanimozhi on Thursday.
The second rung leaders of the DMK seem to be echoing the same views. They said that it was their leader MK Stalin who first proposed Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate of the Congress-led alliance during the 2019 LS polls. Now, Mamata has claimed that she wanted to unite the Opposition first to fight the saffron party’s divisive politics.
Sabapathy Mohan, DMK’s propaganda wing secretary, told Express, “The DMK and TMC are always fighting for State rights. The BJP has always snatched it away in the name of enacting various acts that push the States into dire straits. Hence, the meeting between Banerjee and Kanimozhi would be the next move to protect the State rights. Eventually, it would become a strong alliance against the BJP. The DMK had in the past formed a National Front by uniting a majority of State parties against the Congress.”
Veteran journalist Tharasu Shyam, commenting on the meeting of the two leaders, said, “Mamata wants to play Jeyaprakash Narayanan’s role, who formed a strong alliance against the Indira Gandhi government in 1977 after the emergency. She has expressed her willingness to work as a catalyst to form a strong alliance against the ruling BJP. Hence, their meeting surely would be in that direction. Mamata needs to contain the BJP since they are becoming a big threat to her in Bengal.”