Opposition party meeting postponed, to be held before Parliament session

The combined meeting of opposition parties that had been planned for July 13–14 in Bengaluru has been rescheduled and will now take place prior to the start of the monsoon session of parliament.

“We will declare the date very soon. We are talking to all political parties and the date will be announced without any delay,” Congress General Secretary K C Venugopal told the reporters on Monday.

“The meeting will certainly take place before the Monsoon Session begins,” the Congress leader said. Parliament Monsoon Session will begin on July 20 and go on till August 20.

Launching a scathing attack on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the recent political drama in Maharashtra, Venugopal said the development will not affect the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition.

“PM Modi made a big allegation recently against the NCP leaders for corruption and now we saw this drama. It is a clear sponsored game of ED and their agencies. It will not affect MVA,” Venugopal said.

“We will fight against BJP more aggressively. This is not going to affect opposition unity, this is NCP’s issue. Sharad Pawar is the tallest leader of the party and he will be able to handle the situation. Some leaders changing the party does not mean that the supporters of the party and other members will go with them,” he said.

The Opposition meeting will not take place on the scheduled dates of July 13–14, but will instead take place soon, according to JD(U) chief spokesperson KC Tyagi.

Mallikarjun Kharge, the head of the Congress, allegedly said the second conference would take place in Shimla on July 10 and 12 on June 23, following the completion of the first Unity meeting in Patna, Bihar.

The next gathering of opposition leaders has been moved from Shimla to Bengaluru due to the weather conditions in Himachal Pradesh, Sharad Pawar stated at a news conference in Pune on Thursday.

Top Opposition figures, including Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal United (JDU) leader Nitish Kumar, Congressmen Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, among others, had decided to fight the BJP government at the Centre cooperatively in the upcoming Lok Sabha election at the inaugural meeting earlier in Patna.