Naming the alliance INDIA is seen as an attempt by the opposition parties to challenge the BJP on its own nationalist platform in elections due by May 2024
4 Indian Opposition Parties Form India Alliance For 2024 Election
From left, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M K Stalin, Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee and senior Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi attend opposition parties meeting in Bengaluru on July 18, 2023AFP
Reuters
Published: July 18, 2023 7:58 PM | Last updated: July 18, 2023 8:05 PM
More than two dozen Indian opposition parties said on Tuesday that they had joined hands to form an alliance called “INDIA” to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in parliamentary elections next year.
Naming the alliance INDIA is seen as an attempt by the opposition parties to challenge the BJP on its own nationalist platform in elections due by May 2024.
Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the main opposition Congress party, said INDIA stood for “Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.”
“The main aim is to stand together to safeguard democracy and the constitution,” Kharge told reporters at the end of a two-day meeting of 26 opposition parties in the southern city of Bengaluru.
The Bengaluru meeting of opposition parties is their second in a month to sink differences and build a common platform ahead of next year’s elections, which BJP remains the favourite to win.
The first meeting last month had 15 parties agreeing to unite against the BJP.
The parties, many of which are regional rivals and have been splintered at the national level, account for less than half the 301 seats BJP has in the 542-member lower house of parliament.
They have, however, sought to sink their differences to challenge the BJP after Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi was convicted in a defamation case and disqualified from parliament in March.
The BJP has criticized the opposition group as an alliance of opportunists and the corrupt and is on Tuesday holding a meeting of the 38-party National Democratic Alliance it heads.
A statement from the INDIA alliance said the “character of our republic is being severely assaulted in a systematic manner by the BJP” and pledged to “safeguard the idea of India as enshrined in the Constitution.”
In the first indication of a common political and economic policy, the alliance said it would focus on fighting rising prices and unemployment.
