UNITED IN OPPOSITION
ON AUGUST 20, the Congress president Sonia Gandhi held a virtual meeting with the leaders of 18 other political parties in opposition to the BJP, which is in power at the Centre. This was the third such meeting convened by the Congress’s top leadership. During Parliament’s monsoon session, Rahul Gandhi had met with opposition leaders twice, hosting a breakfast for them on one occasion. These developments are being seen as the first concerted moves by the Congress to create an alliance of anti-BJP parties since Prime Minister Narendra Modi first came to power in 2014.
While the next Lok Sabha election is three years away, this early alliance-building seems to have been triggered by the realisation that opposition parties need to formulate a cohesive and consistent narrative against the BJP to take advantage of the public despair resulting
