New Delhi: Despite the semblance of bonhomie between the two, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has snubbed West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee for the second time in recent weeks.
Rao, or KCR as he is popularly known, has refrained from commenting on Banerjee’s ongoing tug-of-war with the CBI, despite several opposition leaders having extended support to the Trinamool Congress supremo.
KCR is also known to have recalled his MPs from Parliament to eliminate the Telangana Rashtra Samiti’s presence in what proved to be chaotic proceedings.
Amid strong words of support from Rahul Gandhi, Chandrababu Naidu, Akhilesh Yadav, Sharad Pawar, Tejashwi Yadav and Mayawati, KCR is once again the odd one out in the oppositions, two weeks after skipping the anti-BJP rally hosted by Mamata Banerjee.
The Telangana chief minister has been at the forefront of forming a non-BJP, non-Congress federal alliance.
KCR decided to skip Mamata’s rally as the latter had shown no qualms in accepting a Congress-led alliance, as long as it was non-BJP. KCR, however, has had different views on the same. Interestingly, KCR, after a storming back to power in Telangana, met Mamata Banerjee as part of his renewed efforts towards building a federal front without the BJP and the Congress.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which had skipped the opposition rally, has also extended support to Mamata’s dharna. While BJP supremo and Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik is unlikely to visit Kolkata, sources in the party said Patnaik believed the situation was improper and that the “CBI was being used as a machinery to settle political scores”.
Mamata’s dharna against the Narendra Modi government’s alleged misuse of the CBI has once again brought regional leaders together.
Like her United India rally on January 19, this time around, too, the fiery chief minister has support from Samajwadi Party as Kiranmoy Nanda joined the CM at her protest venue as a representative of Akhilesh Yadav.
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, too, has extended support, saying the events in Bengal are part of the “unrelenting attack” on Indian institutions by Modi and BJP.
Janata Dal (Secular) and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, too, took to Twitter and expressed his support for the protest, likening the situation in Bengal to the Emergency era.
Several opposition leaders are slated to meet on Monday evening in the national capital, led by Andhra Pradesh CM and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu who has said that an action plan will be drafted for a “nation-wide movement”. Omar Abdullah, Tejashwi Yadav, Mayawati, Sharad Pawar and Arvind Kejriwal spoke to the West Bengal chief minister over phone to extend their support. Maharashtra Navnirmal Sena’s Raj Thackeray has also pledged his support “to fight this tyranny”.
Comments
0 comment