In a follow-up to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s lunch diplomacy, when she hosted leaders from 17 political parties here on Friday last, her party has taken the initiative once again and announced a political rally in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, on June 4. Invitations have gone out to the same parties.
Ms. Gandhi will not be attending the rally. Party vice-president Rahul Gandhi will preside. It will come a day after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham organises a grand birthday party for its supremo, Karunanidhi, to which all major political parties have been invited.
All the 17 parties that were invited to the lunch in Delhi have been invited to the Guntur rally. Already, one of the organisers told The Hindu , the Janata Dal-United, the CPI, the Nationalist Congress Party, the DMK and the Trinamool Congress have accepted the invitation.
Lalu’s rally
Meanwhile, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has announced that he will hold a rally in Patna on August 27: it is learnt that both Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati have agreed to attend. “I will be present at Lalu Prasadji’s Bihar rally on August 27 and Mayawati will also be there,” agencies quoted Mr. Yadav as saying. “If there is any announcement [regarding future alliance], it will be made there,” he said when asked about the possibility of the SP and the BSP coming together.
The RJD chief has invited several top Opposition leaders to the mega rally.
Presidential poll
Meanwhile, the Opposition parties are also pursuing their plan to field a secular candidate for the presidential poll. Last Friday, they had said that if the government fails to suggest a “secular” candidate around whom a national consensus can be built, the Opposition will field its own nominee who will uphold the Constitution. At that meeting, Opposition leaders had discussed the record of the Modi government, touching in detail on the grave situation in Kashmir and Saharanpur, the unchecked spate of heinous crimes against Dalits, youth, women, and minorities, and demonetisation.
