In October, Opposition plans joint stir on fuel price hike, farmers’ woes

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Opposition parties are planning to hold in October a nationwide protest on several issues, including fuel price hike and farmers’ woes. The event will coincide with the “Sanjha Virasat Bachao” conference in poll-bound Gujarat.

Sources said CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi Ahmed Patel and rebel JDU leader Sharad Yadav met on Monday to chalk out plans. Dates for the protest and the conference will be finalised this week, said sources.

A leader associated with planning the protest said the idea is to take the Opposition’s campaign against the government to the home turf of PM Narendra Modi. The decision to organise “Sanjha Virasat Bachao” conference in Gujarat will be a corollary to forging an Opposition alliance of Congress, JD(U) and some state outfits, including Hardik Patel’s Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti, for the Assembly polls later this year, said the leader.

This will be the fourth such conference after Delhi, Indore and Jaipur. The protest and the conference will be organised after Yadav is back from his four day-long second leg of Bihar tour starting on September 25. On October 8, the Sharad camp in JD(U) is holding its national council meeting in Delhi.

“Efforts are on to organise a nationwide protest against Modi government’s policies. Congress and other Opposition parties have been sounded about it and have been asked to come up with a date acceptable to all. It will be a programme on the line of Bharat Bandh organised twice in the past and different Opposition parties will organise the event in their areas of influence. The effort is to blur state-level rivalries of the parties and bring parties like Trinamool Congress and Left, SP and BSP together on this day,” said an Opposition leader.