New Delhi: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said today that the next opposition meeting will be held in Bengaluru on July 13 and 14.
On June 23, at the first opposition meet in Patna, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had announced that the next meet to strategise a united front against the BJP would be held in Shimla. However, the venue was changed owing to heavy rainfall in Himachal Pradesh.
"After the first meeting, now we have decided that the second meeting of the opposition party will happen in Bengaluru on 13th and 14th July. The decision has been taken today, earlier the meeting was supposed to be held in Shimla but due to heavy rainfall In Shimla, the meeting will now happen in Bengaluru," Mr Pawar said.
"Here we will be planning our strategies on how to be united and how to face the elections together. We will also try to form a strategy to oppose the current communal tensions and misuse of central forces in several states," he added.
Sixteen opposition parties met in Patna to streamline a roadmap to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The four-hour meeting concluded with sharp exchanges between Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The AAP said it will not participate in future opposition meetings that include the Congress until the party publicly denounces the central government's contentious ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi.
Mr Pawar said recently that there was no discussion about the "prime ministerial post" at the Patna meet. The NCP chief said that the meeting instead focused on issues such as inflation, unemployment, and "deliberate attempts" to encourage communal violence in some parts of the country.
At a joint press briefing following the Patna opposition meet, hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the parties said they would fight the polls on a common agenda and with a state-wise strategy.
Top BJP leaders dismissed the meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah terming it as a mere "photo opportunity".
Party president JP Nadda said that the leaders who attended the meeting were those who were jailed by the Congress during the Emergency while Union Minister Smriti Irani said that the Congress is rallying opposition parties because it is unable to win elections on its own.