Congress on Day 2 of the Opposition meeting asserted that their sole motto is to protect democracy and that they are not eying the Prime Minister post. Top leaders of 26 opposition parties are brainstorming in Bengaluru on July 17-18. They are likely to start the work on a common minimum programme and announce a joint agitational plan to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
At the joint Opposition meeting in Bengaluru, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said, "I had already said in Chennai, on MK Stalin’s birthday, that Congress is not interested in power or the post of Prime Minister. Our intention in this meeting is not to gain power for ourselves. It is to protect our Constitution, Democracy, Secularism and Social Justice."
Admitting to differences among opposition parties at the state level, the Congress chief asserted that these are not 'ideological.' "These differences are not so big that we cannot put them behind us for the sake of the common man and middle class which is suffering due to inflation, for the sake of our youth who are suffering from unemployment, for the sake of the poor, Dalits, adivasis and the minorities whose rights are being crushed silently behind the scenes," the Congress chief said.
"The BJP did not get 303 seats by itself. It used the votes of its allies and came to power and then discarded them. Today, the BJP president and its leaders are running from state to state to patch up with their old allies," he added.
