Om Prakash Chautala meets Mulayam Singh Yadav as he plans grand opposition show

GURUGRAM: A day after Bihar CM Nitish Kumar visited him, INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala went to Medanta hospital on Wednesday to meet Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Chautala is said to have invited Mulayam for the Samman Diwas programme to commemorate the birth anniversary of Chaudhary Devi Lal on September 25.
The INLD is also looking at the Samman Diwas event as a show of strength by opposition parties as parties begin to plot their gambits for the 2024 general elections. Chautala has decided to invite leaders like Nitish Kumar, Farooq Abdullah, HD Deve Gowda and Chandrababu Naidu.
"He is unwell. He is in Medanta. I went to ask about his health and also invited him for Samman Diwas. If he is well, he will come, else his son will come," Chautala told TOI, referring to Samajwadi Party leader and former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav.
During his visit to the city on Tuesday, Nitish had met Chautala at his apartment in Ambience Caitriona, before driving down to Medanta to see Mulayam. Akhilesh, who accompanied him at the hospital, later tweeted, "Aaj Delhi mein ek mulaqat, shishtachar aur kushal-kshem ke naam (In Delhi today, a meeting dedicated to civility and pleasantries)."
Asked about efforts to stitch together a united opposition, an experiment that has failed many times, the INLD leader and former Haryana CM said, "The opposition front will be created. It will happen by itself because everyone is angry with BJP. Our main ideology right now is to fight BJP. So, an opposition front will be formed. I will invite everyone. This is the need of the hour," said Chautala.
Last year, after he served out his prison term in the teacher recruitment scam and walked out of jail, Chautala had announced the formation of a "third front" that would be non-BJP and non-Congress. But the front never materialized.