Now, Sharad Pawar, After KCR's Call for Third Front, Invites Opposition Parties for Meeting in Delhi

New Delhi: Amid a flurry of activity in the opposition camp to appropriate leadership of the non-BJP front ahead of the next general elections, Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar has called a meeting of opposition parties in Delhi on 27 and 28 of March.

Party leader and trusted Pawar aide, Praful Patel, travelled to Kolkata to invite TMC leader Mamata Banerjee for the meeting.

The West Bengal chief minister has confirmed her participation in the event.

Earlier, Pawar had led a ‘save the constitution march’ in Mumbai this Republic Day for which regional parties had sent in their representatives.

Apart from Pawar, other regional leaders to float the idea of anti-BJP front include Telangana Chief Minister K Chadrashekhar Rao.

On March 3, KCR said, “There is a serious need to bring change in national politics. Seventy years have passed since Independence and out of those 70 years, 64 years were ruled by either BJP or Congress. Even after 70 years, people are suffering and they don’t even have water to drink.”

“It can be a third front or anything. What is required at the time is change and it will emerge at the appropriate time. Change has to happen. It is unification of the people of India and not just some political parties. And this will surely be minus BJP and Congress, no doubt about that,” said KCR.

At the same time, the TRS leader said that he has nothing against PM Modi. He said he was Modi's "best friend".

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is also hosting a dinner for opposition leaders in Delhi next week.

Sonia Gandhi continues to lead the Congress Parliamentary Party after handing over the reins of the organization to her son Rahul.

A section of the opposition has been more comfortable in dealing with the old guards in the Congress than the new team led by Rahul Gandhi.

With Congress conceding a lot of political space to the BJP in north, central and western India in the last general elections, renewed jostling in the opposition ranks is being seen as an attempt by the regional parties to seek leadership of the opposition front.