Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Oppn parties to meet on Nov 22 to further discuss forging anti-BJP platform

Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Ahead of upcoming general election that is due to be held in India next year to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha, all the anti-BJP parties will meet in New Delhi on November 22 to create a common platform and chalk out their future course of action, TDP president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu said Saturday. Naidu said the endeavour was to bring everybody on board to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party. The New Delhi meeting would decide on "how to move forward" and also "build an organisational structure" for the anti-BJP platform, he added. He said this in a press meet after a meeting with Congress general secretary Ashok Gehlot who was in Amaravati as an emissary of Rahul Gandhi at his riverfront residence. Naidu said he had already met several leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Farooq Abdullah and others, and would meet Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. He would meet Mamata Banerjee on November 19 or 20.

I appeal all parties opposing BJP to join us. We want to create an anti-BJP platform. We want to have one meeting in Delhi. We'll discuss issues & then chalk out a programme & take the issues forward.That's the agenda.Meeting's tentative date is 22nd Nov:Chandrababu Naidu.(10.11) pic.twitter.com/pwZLgk6YVT

— ANI (@ANI) November 11, 2018

"This is broadly anti-BJP platform. This is in the interest of the nation. Save democracy, save the nation and save the institutions..that is the agenda. That is the national agenda, an utmost important agenda," Naidu was quoted by PTI as saying. The TDP chief had recently met former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, his Karnataka counterpart H D Kumaraswamy and DMK president M K Stalin as part of his efforts to forge a front against the BJP. Naidu said that there were only "two platforms" in the country - BJP and anti-BJP. "Political parties should decide which side they are. If they don't join us, it means they are with BJP," he said. Backing Naidu, Gehlot said there was an "undeclared Emergency-type atmosphere in the country". The former Rajasthan chief minister was quoted as saying, "Institutions are getting destroyed in the country. Constitution (of India) is getting weakened. People are worried. Not one section of the society is happy with the Modi administration in the last four and a half years." While anti-BJP parties have their foundations in secularism and democracy, the BJP and RSS people have only the "mask of democracy" on their faces, he said. "They don't have any faith in democracy. They are fascist...," Gehlot alleged. This was the "proper time" for (anti-BJP) parties to come on to a single platform and forge a grand alliance, the AICC general secretary added.