Leaders of India’s 26 opposition parties are meeting to firm up their strategy to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party in next year’s general elections.
Top opposition leaders including Congress’ Sonia Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are attending.
Reports said the group could also choose a leader for the alliance on Tuesday.
This is the second big meeting of the opposition before the elections.
They are expected to discuss issues such as seat allocation – how many seats each party will contest – and an election agenda at the two-day meeting in Bengaluru (formerly Bengaluru) in the southern state of Karnataka.
But taking on the BJP — which won more than 300 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha (the lower house of India’s parliament) in 2019 — will be a formidable challenge even for a largely united opposition.
The BJP governs about 15 states (India has 28 states and eight union territories) either on its own or as part of an alliance. It is India’s richest political party with declared revenue of 19.17bn rupees ($233.67m; £178.4m) in 2021–22. And its biggest strength in national elections is the popularity of Mr. Modi, who has been able to sway voters who may have opted for a different party in state elections.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties are grappling with their own challenges.
Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as an MP in March after he was convicted and jailed in a defamation case related to comments he made about Mr Modi’s surname at an election rally in 2019. was sentenced to He cannot contest next year’s election.
Many opposition parties are also facing each other in states like West Bengal and Delhi due to different political ideologies.
Some, like the Nationalist Congress Party, are battling internal disunity, while others are trying to deal with a lack of unity among state leaders.
However, observers say a strong anti-BJP sentiment is uniting the opposition, forcing them to iron out their differences.
On Monday, Congress president Mallikarjan Kharge said the opposition parties would “work together to promote the agenda of social justice, inclusive development and national welfare”.
“We want to free the people of India from the dictatorial and anti-people politics of hatred, division, economic inequality and looting,” he added.
Reports say that Sonia Gandhi may be chosen as the president of the alliance, but there is no official confirmation yet.
Meanwhile, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is also scheduled to hold a meeting of 38 allies in the capital Delhi on Tuesday.
On Monday, BJP president JP Nadda criticized the opposition meeting, saying it was based on “selfish politics”.
