KCR eyes mega anti-BJP front: Pawar, Stalin, HDK, Mamata & others invited for meeting

In a big political development, Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao has called a meeting of non-BJP leaders and parties in December. Sources said that an invitation for the closed-door meeting has been sent to NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, Trinamool's Mamata Banerjee, JDS chief Kumaraswamy, Samajwadi party chief Akhilesh Yadav, BSP supremo Mayawati, Shiromani Akali Dal's Prakash Singh Badal, BJD's Naveen Patnaik and DMK's Stalin. Sources said that many other political parties can take part in the proposed meeting and the leaders are set to discuss a strategy to form an anti-BJP platform. It is unclear if the Congress has been called.

This comes at a time when BJP along with its ally JDU has registered another poll victory in Bihar and has won several bypolls including the sole bypoll in Telangana, at Dubbak. While a leadership crisis is haunting the Congress once again with its allies blaming the grand-old party for poor performance, the BJP has also lost its allies - SAD and Shiv Sena - in the recent past.  

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Talk about floating a third front was also going on ahead of Lok Sabha elections and former Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu had even held a couple of meetings regarding the same with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati.

However, it was KCR who had first proposed a front of regional parties sans the Congress and the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, at a time when the BJP had won several elections in the North East, in 2018. Rao had met West Bengal Chief Minister, BSP supremo and Akhilesh Yadav and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik. 

However, when a massive show of opposition unity was on display during the swearing-in ceremony of HD Kumaraswamy, KCR was absent. Mayawati, Mamata and interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi were seen holding each other's hands on the stage, shortly after Banerjee and Naidu had addressed the media at the Karnataka Vidhana Soudha and memorably declared, "Jo humse takraayega, choor choor ho jayega.'(Whoever clashes against us will get crushed). It did not pan out this way in the 2019 polls, however. The TRS, YSRCP and BJD have over the past few years have chosen to sit on the fence with regard to the national scenario. It remains to be seen if this changes in the coming months.

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