Patna Opposition meet: Ahead of tomorrow (June 23)’s crucial Opposition parties’ meeting to chart a roadmap for the formation of an anti-BJP front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh on Thursday stressed the need for preparing a common minimum programme soon.
If Opposition parties unite and contest the General Elections 2024 unitedly, the BJP will come down to less than 100 seats, he claimed.
The Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president said his party is the central pillar of Opposition unity and stressed that small differences between parties will be ironed out at meetings such as the one taking place here.
Who will be PM face?
The issue of who would be the prime ministerial face of the Opposition alliance is not important as the leadership question can be tackled collectively after dislodging the BJP-RSS from power, Bihar Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh said on Thursday, stressing the need for preparing a common minimum programme soon.
“We hope that all will sit together and an amicable solution will be reached to move forward together,” Singh said of the Opposition meeting.
Asked about the BJP’s criticism that the Opposition does not have a prime ministerial face, he said, “I will take you back to 2004, Manmohan Singh ji was not our prime ministerial face and without a prime ministerial face, with an alliance, the Congress defeated the BJP and when (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee ji lost, Manmohan Singh ji became the prime minister and continued for 10 years.”
“This (prime ministerial face) is something not very important, all Opposition parties will unite together and contest the election, we are sure the BJP will come down to less than 100,” the Rajya Sabha MP said.
Stressing that picking the prime ministerial face was not a priority, Singh said it was fine for the BJP to think on those lines but the Congress had not followed that strategy in Karnataka and contested without declaring a CM face.
In Himachal Pradesh also, the Congress did not contest declaring a CM face, he pointed out.
(With PTI inputs)