Opposition unity: Kharge calls DMK, Stalin agrees to the meeting

New Delhi: The Congress party has called a meeting of like-minded party leaders to discuss presenting a unified opposition against the BJP in the next election. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge today spoke to DMK Chief MK Stalin over the phone and invited him to the meeting.

The DMK and Congress are allies in Tamil Nadu and at the national level.

A date or venue for the meeting has not been finalised and Congress is waiting to hear from other parties like Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and the Left parties.

The Tamil Nadu CM has accepted the invitation and extended support to the Opposition's meeting, reported NDTV. After the opposition parties stood together during the budget session, there is hope to form a broader alliance ahead of the 2024 general elections. Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the parliament is also being considered a wake-up call for the opposition.

Last month, the chief minister of West Bengal and the head of Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee also called for a unified opposition ahead of the next year's election. Earlier, she had insisted on the TMC fighting elections alone.

Opposition politicians have been making recurrent statements about the Modi government's strongarm tactics. 14 parties jointly petitioned the Supreme Court saying they were being selectively targeted by federal investigative agencies but the court said the plea was too broad and vague.

During the 2019 election, the 14 main opposition parties accounted for 39% of the national votes as opposed to BJP getting 38% of the votes. The Opposition parties won 160 out of 542 seats in the parliament. BJP won 303 seats in the first-past-the-post system. The BJP is looking to secure a third term easily.