New Delhi: The freshly minted Opposition bloc INDIA will hold its next meeting in Mumbai on August 25-26, sources have told NDTV. While the venue of the meet was announced during the last meeting in Bengaluru, the date was yet to be decided. The agenda of the meeting is likely to be a Common Minimum Programme, the leaders had hinted at the last meet. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had also said an 11-member coordination committee will be set up in Mumbai.
"We are making a coordination committee of 11 people. At that meeting in Mumbai, we will decide on who the 11 will be, who the Convenor will be, etc," he had said.
The Mumbai meeting will be hosted jointly by the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP's Sharad Pawar faction, with support from ally Congress. This is the first time that the opposition is holding a meet in a state where none of the member parties are in power.
The Opposition had declared the Bengaluru meet a huge success. The acronym INDIA was coined at the meet, which, Opposition leaders claimed, has riled the government.
Earlier today, Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien directed a jab at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claiming "We have got you exactly where we wanted".
"Hello, Mr Prime Minister Narendra Modi. You are at it again? Attacking us with our new name INDIA, Jeetega Bharat. What's happened? The only response you can give is a negative one. You know, Mr Modi, we've got you just where we wanted you to be," the Rajya Sabha MP said in a video message he posted on Twitter, responding to PM Modi's address in Rajasthan.
The Opposition coalition, PM Modi said today, had changed its name from UPA (United Progressive Alliance) to INDIA to hide its past wrongdoings.
In a surprise move a days before the Opposition meet, the BJP had also called a meeting in Delhi that coincided with it. In a grand show of strength, the party had gathered together 38 allies, ahead of the Opposition's 26.