New Delhi: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar is working to unite all opposition leaders, party spokesperson Nawab Malik said while commenting on a meeting between Pawar and political strategist Prashant Kishor in New Delhi, their second one-on-one interaction this month, on Monday on the eve of the NCP’s national executive meet.
Malik also said Pawar will host political leaders and eminent persons from different sections of society at his residence in New Delhi on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the “current scenario in the country”.
When asked about the meeting held between Pawar and Kishor, Malik said, “Pawar is working to unite all opposition leaders. Maybe, the meeting was to discuss it. The party’s national executive meeting is also taking place in the national capital tomorrow.”
Kishor, who was instrumental in the Trinamool Congress’ victory in the recent West Bengal assembly election, had a meeting with Pawar over lunch in Mumbai on June 11.
The Tuesday meeting called by Pawar will be attended by National Conference leader and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah, TMC leader Yashwant Sinha, Sanjay Singh from AAP and D Raja from CPI, Malik said. Sanjay Jha, Pawan Verma and Sudheendra Kulkarni will also be present in the meeting, Malik said.
Yashwant Sinha later tweeted that Pawar is hosting a meeting of the ‘Rashtra Manch’, a political action group floated by the former BJP leader in 2018 that targeted the Modi government’s policies.
“We shall have a meeting of the Rashtra Manch tomorrow at 4 pm. Sri Sharad Pawar has kindly agreed to host the meeting at his place,” he said.
Besides politicians, eminent people from various fields such as senior advocate KTS Tulsi, former chief election commissioner SY Qureshi, former ambassador KC Singh, lyricist Javed Akhtar,
filmmaker Pritish Nandy, advocate Colin Gonsalves and media personalities Karan Thapar and Ashutosh will attend Tuesday’s meeting, Malik said.
Kishor, who was part of the BJP’s 2014 Lok Sabha campaign, later handled the campaign of several opposition parties like the TMC, AAP and the DMK.