INDIA: Opposition parties’ Alliance for 2024

The 26 parties at the Second Opposition meeting in Bengaluru announced the name of their alliance — INDIA, standing for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance

Bengaluru: The second meeting of opposition parties hosted by the Congress President Shri Mallikarjun Kharge was held on July 17-18, 2023 at Bengaluru, Karnataka. Smt. Sonia Gandhi and Shri Rahul Gandhi, opposition leaders were also present. Basically, all Opposition parties are united by a common purpose to protect democracy in this country, to ensure the constitutional rights and independence of our institutions. These are all under attack in the present regime of BJP government. They want to silence the opposition voice. They are misusing entire (all) agencies like Enforcement Directorate (ED), CBI to suppress the voice of the opposition. The disqualification of Shri Rahul Gandhi from the Parliament is one of the biggest examples. The recent incident happening in Maharashtra also was one of the examples of that. They want to destabilise the democratically elected government by misusing these agencies.

Secondly, Manipur has been burning for the last 75 days. One of our prestigious and the most strategic states has been burning for the last 75 days, not even a concrete initiative to resolve the problem has been taken so far and the shocking one is the total silence of the Prime Minister. The people of the country are in great distress, especially the common people of this country due to unemployment and price rise. There is no concrete measure to address the concerns of the common people of this country.

At the conclusion of a four-hour-long meeting of the Opposition Parties, the 26 parties announced the name of their alliance — INDIA, standing for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. They framed the 2024 electoral contest as a fight between the BJP and the rest of the country. The thrust of the deliberations was on picking a name which would effectively counter the BJP’s narrative of “nationalism” and thus the name — INDIA. Among the other names considered were “Progressive People’s Alliance”, “Indian People’s Front” and “People’s Alliance for India”. A day after the alliance ‘INDIA’, they finalised ‘Jeetega Bharat’ as the combine’s tagline, setting the tone for their 2024 Lok Sabha campaign. The Hindi tagline means “India will win” and is likely to be replicated in several regional languages.

Earlier, several Opposition leaders gathered in Bihar’s capital Patna on June 23, 2023, for a First crucial meeting aimed at establishing unity ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Bihar Chief Minister Shri Nitish Kumar hosted the first meeting, which includes the participation of various political parties such as Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Shiv Sena (UBT), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Samajwadi Party (SP), National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), CPI, CPM, CPI ML, Janata Dal United (JDU), and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The objective of the gathering is to foster collaboration among the opposition parties. It was decided in Patna that the next meeting of Opposition Parties will be held under the leadership of Congress President Shri Mallikarjun Kharge in Bengaluru.