Poll strategist Prashant Kishor meets Sharad Pawar, 3rd time in a fortnight

Political strategist Prashant Kishor met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on Wednesday, a day after leaders of eight opposition parties gathered at Pawar’s residence and discussed various issues facing the country.

According to sources, the closed-door discussions between Kishor and Pawar, held at the latter’s residence in Delhi, lasted for about an hour.

This was their third meeting within a fortnight.

Kishor, who was instrumental in the thumping victory of the Trinamool Congress in the West Bengal Assembly polls, had met Pawar over lunch at his residence in Mumbai on June 11. He again called on the NCP chief at his residence in Delhi on Monday.

These meetings with Pawar has fuelled speculations about the possibility of opposition parties coming together to form a third front against the BJP.

Pawar on Tuesday hosted a meeting of the leaders of eight opposition parties including the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Left at his residence in Delhi.

However, leaders who took part in that discussions asserted that it was a “non-political” meeting of like-minded individuals by Rashtriya Manch that was floated by former finance minister and TMC vice-president Yashwant Sinha along with others.

Before the opposition leaders’ meeting on Tuesday, Pawar also chaired NCP’s national executive meeting the same day and had “a detailed discussion” with his party leaders on its “future policies, its role in the next Lok Sabha polls and current national issues.”

The opposition party leaders’ meet at Pawar’s residence was attended by National Conference’s leader Omar Abdullah, SP’s Ghanshyam Tiwari, RLD president Jayant Chaudhary, Sushil Gupta from the AAP, Binoy Viswam from the CPI, Nilotpal Basu from CPI-M and TMC vice-president Yashwant Sinha among others.

Former Congress leader Sanjay Jha and Janata Dal-United’s (JD-U) ex-leader Pavan Verma also participated in the meeting. Besides politicians, several eminent personalities such as Javed Akhtar, former ambassador KC Singh and Justice (retd) A P Shah were also present at Tuesday’s meeting.