The meeting came a day after Banerjee went to the national capital to meet National Congress party leader Sharad Pawar and tried to persuade him to become the common opposition candidate for the top constitutional post. However, Pawar turned down the offer, sources said. PTI,
The pressure of a joint presidential candidate for Chief Minister of West Bengal to counter the strength of the BJP-led NDA in Parliament, however, has been criticized by the Left in West Bengal. Upset over the TMC supremo’s “unilateral” decision to call a meeting to discuss a joint presidential candidate, the CPI(M) and CPI on Tuesday said they would send their MPs to the opposition meeting to be held here on June 15.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI general secretary D Raja said the top leadership would not attend the meeting called by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief.
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premiumThe CPI(M) will be represented in the meeting by the party’s leader in Rajya Sabha Elamaram Karim.
Yechury has also written a letter to Banerjee stating that such meetings of opposition parties always follow the process of prior mutual consultation so that maximum participation of those willing to attend it can be achieved.
“However, in this instance, we received a one-way communication detailing the date, time, venue and agenda. Your letter mentions that ‘a useful confluence of opposition voices is the need of the hour’. This could have been achieved better if there had been an opportune time for mutual consultation and enabling the party leaders to re-schedule their prior commitments to attend such a meeting,” Yechury wrote.