Banerjee to host Opposition meeting on Wed to discuss presidential polls

At least three Congress leaders will attend conclave but their party will have little say in making strategy

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will host an Opposition conclave to discuss strategy for the upcoming Presidential elections and other issues – where the Congress will be only a bit player – at 3 pm on Wednesday.

President Ram Nath Kovind’s tenure ends on July 24. Elections will be held on July 18 for the next President and counting, if required, on July 21.

The conclave will be attended by Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Jairam Ramesh, and Randeep Singh Surjewala, as well as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, who has told his party he is not in the running for the President.

Interestingly, the information that Pawar has refused to be the joint Opposition candidate was conveyed to the public by CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury. Pawar met Yechury, CPI general secretary D Raja, and NCP leaders Praful Patel and P C Chacko in Delhi and conveyed to them his decision to not contest the election. “I have been informed that Pawar will not be the Oppo­sition face for the Presidential polls, other names are under consideration,” said Yechury.

The West Bengal chief minister has invited 22 leaders, including her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, Pinarayi Vijayan of Kerala, Naveen Patnaik from Odisha, Telangana’s K Chandrashekar Rao, MK Stalin from Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra’s Uddhav Thackeray, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, Bhagwant Mann from Punjab, and Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi. That the CPI (M) chief minister of Kerala is on the list of invitees is significant as Banerjee’s rise in West Bengal has been at the cost of the Left party. Many of these leaders are heads of parties whose primary enemy is the Congress. They might not have attended the meeting if the Congress had convened it. Therefore, the attendance sheet becomes significant — not just for those who will turn up, but also for those who will choose to be absent.

Banerjee has not invited parties like the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) in power in the state, which is an avowed supporter of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the National People’s Party (NPP), whose leader, the youthful Conrad Sangma is chief minister of Meghalaya. The NPP and Trinamool Congress are in direct competition with each other.

Banerjee, who has been seeking to play a prominent national role since her massive Assembly victory in West Bengal in 2021, is said to be looking for an initiative of strong and effective opposition against “divisive forces” ahead of the Presidential election.