Days after he delivered a shock to the Congress, stating that he believes the Adani Group is being “targeted” by unknown entities whose motives he questioned, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi in a fence-mending exercise. After the meeting, Pawar said opposition parties should unite and an exercise should be undertaken to reach out to all of them. Elsewhere in the national capital, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar met Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, as well as AAP leader Sanjay Singh, as part of his efforts to bring about a united front against the BJP ahead of next year's General Election. This comes a day after Nitish held talks with the top Congress leadership. The JD(U) chief, who had also met AAP convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday, later left for Patna. Pawar said efforts should be made to reach out to leaders such as TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, who has already declared that she will not ally with any party for the 2024 elections, and Kejriwal. The stage for the meeting was set by Pawar himself after he toned down his opposition to a JPC probe into allegations against the Adani Group, saying that he will not oppose a JPC for the sake of Opposition unity. He said all the parties have the same view regarding coming together but argued that only this will not help and efforts should be made for unity. Addressing a joint press conference with Kharge and Rahul, Pawar said, “Some political parties have similar ideologies (and) efforts should be made to bring them together. Kharge is the Leader of Opposition (in Rajya Sabha) and he has made this effort which will benefit everyone. This is a beginning. After this, other opposition parties such as Mamata Banerjee's TMC or Arvind Kejriwal's AAP, or other parties with whom talks have not taken place.efforts should be made to bring them together under this process for unity.” Kharge said, “We are happy that Sharad Pawar-saab has come here directly from Mumbai and given us guidance.” On the meeting he and Rahul had with Nitish Kumar and Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday, Kharge said, “All like-minded parties should unite to save the country, democracy, and protect the Constitution, besides taking up issues such as freedom of speech and expression, unemployment, inflation and misuse of autonomous bodies.” "We have decided to come together and fight, and we will talk to all parties. Yesterday we met two parties and today Pawar-saheb has come and we have decided we will meet everyone, talk to them and move forward together," Kharge said. Rahul said, “This process of uniting the Opposition has started. This is a beginning and all parties are committed towards this process.” Kharge later tweeted a photograph of him with Pawar and Rahul and wrote, "Stronger, together! We stand united for a better, brighter and an equal future for our people. Along with Shri Rahul Gandhi ji met NCP President, Shri Sharad Pawar ji and had a discussion on the future course of action.” On the meeting with Nitish, CPI(M) general secretary Yechury said, "Efforts for Opposition unity have picked up pace. An Opposition coalition will be formed and seat adjustments will be done at the state level.” CPI general secretary D Raja told The Indian Express: "Nitish Kumar said we all will have to come together and work together. He said an initiative will have to be taken at the political level for this. I appreciated his initiative and told him that our primary objective must be to defeat the BJP, for which all secular, democratic parties must come together.” Nitish, according to insiders, plans to also speak to Telangana CM and Bharat Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav. The Bihar CM, according to sources, said at the meeting that he would also reach out to YSR Congress Party chief and Andhra Pradesh CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, Biju Janata Dal chief and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik. The plan is to complete the talks within a month and then try and work out a meeting of all opposition parties that are on board to crystallize the unity bid. The nuts and bolts of the unity efforts, including seat-sharing to ensure that there is only one Opposition candidate against the BJP in as many Lok Sabha seats as possible and exploring the possibility of giving a formal structure to the opposition grouping, will be discussed at that meeting.
