The stage is set for the two-day meeting of opposition parties to be held in Bengaluru from Monday, the event, hosted by the Congress, aimed at taking forward the discussions held in the first meeting of the parties in Patna last month.
Around 26 parties are expected to take part in the meeting, with the AAP, on the eve of the event, confirming its attendance following the Congress' public declaration of its opposition to the Centre's ordinance on services in Delhi.
The leaders will have a preliminary, informal discussion on Monday evening as they will gather for a dinner hosted by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. The dinner meeting will set the agenda for the discussions to take place the following day.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi will attend the meeting, in tune with the party's efforts to maximise the impact of the event and also add heft to its presence as it hosts the gathering in a state that it has recently wrested from the BJP.
In the run-up to the meeting, there was suspense over whether AAP will take part in it or not. The party had laid down as a pre-condition for its presence in the meeting a declaration from the Congress that it will oppose the Centre's ordinance that seeks to give control of the bureaucracy in the capital to the Lieutenant Governor when it comes up in Parliament.
Following the Congress' decision to oppose the ordinance in Parliament, declared on Sunday after the meeting of the party's parliamentary strategy group, the AAP confirmed that it will attend the meeting in Bengaluru.
The AAP's Political Affairs Committee met on Sunday under the chairmanship of National Convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, where it was unanimously decided that the party will attend the Bengaluru meet.
After the AAP's PAC meeting, senior party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha told reporters that an AAP delegation led by Kejriwal will attend the opposition meeting.
The meeting takes place in the shadow of the recent split in the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra. It also comes on the heels of the Panchayat elections in West Bengal where the Congress and the Left have accused the Trinamool Congress of instigating the violence in the local polls and not allowing free and fair elections. Also, differences have cropped up amongst the parties with regard to Uniform Civil Code.
Opposition leaders have downplayed the differences, saying local-level issues will not impact the discussions that are aimed at drawing up a common agenda at the national level to mount a joint fight against the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.
