Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha has triggered a surprising wave of opposition unity. (File photo/PTI).
Tharoor said that the Congress would effectively become the “de facto” where other parties converge, but stressed that he would “not talk about it” if he was in a party leadership position.
Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said that if he were the Congress president, he would encourage smaller parties to become coordinators of the opposition alliance to take on the BJP in the 2024 general elections.
Speaking to PTI, Tharoor said the Congress would effectively become the “de facto” where other parties converge, but asserted that he would “not talk about it” if he held the party leadership position. “.
“Fairly we are the only opposition party with a national footprint. There will be a direct contest between the Congress and the BJP in the elections for about 200 seats.
However, the senior party leader, who contested the Congress presidential election last year, said unity is more important than pride of place. “But if I were in the party leadership, I would not talk about it; In fact I would actually encourage one of the smaller parties to take on the role of coordinator of the opposition coalition. In my view, unity is more important than pride of place,” Tharoor asserted.
Tharoor had contested for the post of Congress president last year but lost to Mallikarjun Kharge in the party’s internal elections.
He remarked that the 2019 disqualification of Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha following his conviction in a defamation case has generated a “surprising wave of opposition unity”, as regional parties traditionally oppose the Congress in their states, including Delhi. In AAP, TMC is included in West Bengal. Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana, CPIM in Kerala have come out in his support.
According to him, with most of the opposition parties now united under a common objective and avoiding vote-splitting, the BJP may face more difficulty in securing a majority in the upcoming 2024 elections.
While the Congress has often referred to opposition unity, the Trinamool Party has said that the Congress is not its “old month”, while BRS chief and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been advocating a Third Front that was neither affiliated with the Congress. Nor the BJP.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has dismissed “opposition unity” as a threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, saying leaders are only fighting the BJP in their respective states. Are.
“Chandrasekhar Rao, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party and Congress – suppose all four come together under the Modi vs Rest formula. Think if Chandrasekhar Rao holds a public meeting in Uttar Pradesh, what difference will it make? If Mamata Banerjee Rally in Telangana, will it make any difference? Or if (Akhilesh) Yadav sahab holds meetings in Bengal, what difference will it make? Shah said at the News18 Rising India Summit.
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