Presidential Election: Mamata Banerjee met NCP Chief Sharad Pawar in New Delhi On Tuesday.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday will hold a meeting with several Opposition leaders to discuss presidential polls and put up a united fight against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
The presidential polls will take place on July 18 and the results will be declared on July 21.
Chief Minister Banerjee flew to New Delhi on Tuesday and met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar at his residence.
Here are the LIVE updates on the Opposition Meet:
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Mamata Banerjee Receives Leaders At Opposition Meet
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee personally received polticlal leaders from different parties for the Opposition Meet in New Delhi to discuss the upcoming presidential elections.
Manoj Jha and AD Singh, representing RJD, were seen arriving for the meet. Shiv Sena is being represented by Priyanka Chaturvedi and Subhash Desai. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah is also one of the attendees.
JD(S) is represented by HD Kumaraswamy while DMK's TR Baalu is also among those attending the meet.
A Owaisi Not Invited To Opposition Meet, Says "Wouldn't Have Gone" Anyway
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday said he was not invited to the meeting called by Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with the Opposition leaders to discuss the Presidential polls.
Speaking to ANI over the phone, Mr Owaisi said, "I was not invited. Even if I were invited, I would not have participated. The reason is Congress. The TMC party which speaks ill about us, even if they had invited us, we would not have gone just because they invited the Congress."
TRS, BJD, AAP and SAD Likely To Skip Meeting
The TRS, BJD, AAP and SAD are likely to skip Wednesday's opposition meeting called by TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to forge a consensus on fielding a joint candidate against the NDA in the presidential election.
Chief Minister Banerjee last week invited leaders of 19 political parties, including seven chief ministers, for a meeting in the national capital to produce a "confluence of opposition voices" for the election on July 18.
Leaders from the Shiromani Akali Dal, Aam Aadmi Party and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi won't attend the meeting, sources in the three parties said. A BJD leader added on condition of anonymity that the party had not yet received any instruction from their chief Naveen Patnaik. Senior leader Pinaki Misra is also not in the country.
Party leaders invited to the meeting include Arvind Kejriwal (AAP), Naveen Patnaik (BJD), K Chandrashekar Rao (TRS), M K Stalin (DMK), Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena) Hemant Soren (JMM), Akhilesh Yadav (SP), D Raja (CPI), Sharad Pawar (NCP), Lalu Prasad (RJD), Jayant Chaudhary (RLD), former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and HD Kumaraswamy (JD-S), Farooq Abdullah (National Conference), Mehbooba Mufti (PDP), Sukhbir Singh Badal (SAD), Pawan Chamling (Sikkim Democratic Front), and K M Kader Mohideen (IUML).
Some parties, including the BSP and the AIMIM, were not invited.
Chief Minister KCR's Party Skips Opposition Meet
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, who had bonded with Mamata Banerjee over their common goal of defeating the BJP, opted out of the meeting this morning, raising strong objections to the Congress being invited. Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is likely to be another significant absentee, sources say.
"There is no question of sharing any platform with the Congress," said the TRS in a pungent note.
The party said the Congress had been invited despite its objections and lashed out at its leader Rahul Gandhi. "Rahul Gandhi, in a recent public meeting in Telangana had targeted the TRS government without any word of criticism against the BJP," the note said, accusing the Congress of "ganging up with the BJP" in Telangana, especially in recent by-polls.