13 July,2023 06:28 PM IST | New Delhi | mid-day online correspondent
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Senior Maharashtra Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan stated that his party will lead the opposition in the state following the recent split in the NCP.
He also stated that they will contest the Lok Sabha polls next year as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition. Chavan also expressed confidence that there will be no split in the Congress as had been witnessed with the Shiv Sena and the NCP.
Chavan said that at the national level, the opposition alliance was taking shape on the lines of the principle adopted by the then opposition under J P Narayan to defeat Indira Gandhi in 1977.
"He (Narayan) defeated us (Congress) but the principle remains. He forged a broad-based alliance of opposition parties who were opposed to Indira Gandhi. They did not fight about who will lead the alliance. Mr J P Narain led the alliance but he was not the PM candidate," Chavan said in an interview with PTI.
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He added, "The opposition alliance that is being shaped up now is going in that direction".
"If we adopt this strategy and set aside the issue of the prime ministerial face considering that our first objective is to defeat the BJP, saving democracy and Constitution, we can do this," the Congress leader and ex-CM of Maharashtra said.
Speaking about the development in Maharashtra politics and whether the Congress would take the lead of MVA, Chavan said there have been two major splits in two major components of the MVA -- the Shiv Sena and the NCP -- and after that, the Congress has emerged as the largest constituent of the coalition.
"The Congress will naturally take the lead, it will become the principal opposition party, a Congress person will probably become the leader of the opposition. The numbers have shrunk from the time we were in the government because there have been two splits, but whatever the numbers, our parties are large, a large number of people support us on the ground," he said.
"The Congress will lead the opposition and we will be an effective opposition (in Maharashtra)," he stressed.
"There will be no split in the Congress. The Congress will have to lead opposition unity in Maharashtra. With the meeting in Delhi, it has become absolutely clear that we will fight the Lok Sabha elections as MVA, the seat sharing will be done later," he said.
"We had started an exercise (for seat sharing) but due to the split in the NCP, a new beginning has to be made," he said.
Senior Congress leaders from Maharashtra met the party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi this Tuesday and discussed the political situation in the wake of the split in the NCP.
Asked whether the MVA will continue till 2024, Chavan said, "There is no reason to ask this question. We have said a number times that the MVA was constituted for a particular purpose and that purpose was to defeat the communal forces led by BJP and to stop the march towards dictatorship that the Modi government is leading the country to."
(with inputs from PTI)
