Opposition had differences but working to come together, efforts to divide us have ‘failed’: BRS leader Keshava Rao

NEW DELHI: BRS leader K Keshava Rao on Thursday said Opposition parties have had their differences, but are working to come together and all efforts to divide them have ”failed”. His remarks come at a time when unity among the Opposition parties has strengthened following Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from Lok Sabha after he was convicted for two years in a 2019 defamation case by a Surat court.

K Chandrashekar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has been strongly opposed to the Congress in the past and had also talked about a third front earlier.

Addressing a joint press conference of opposition leaders at the Constitution Club after a ”Tiranga March” from Parliament House to Vijay Chowk, Rao said the parties on the podium had ”distance and differences” between them, but were now working to come together.

”You have, right before you, all the Opposition parties which maintained some distance and had differences, but today you are seeing how it is evolving. We are becoming so strong that all efforts to divide us have failed. We are today united right before you on the ground,” said Rao, who is the leader of BRS in the Rajya Sabha.

”What happens tomorrow please let us leave it because we are working to see how we come together,” he said.

To a query on the Opposition’s leadership issue, Rao said, ”Why are you always obsessed with the leadership issue, a nation will certainly be led by a person, led by a combination of ideologies and the programmes. What we are trying to do is to see that kind of a programme is on the board that we are all on the same page.” The Opposition parties, including the Congress, TMC, BRS and Samajwadi Party, came together in a show of unity on Thursday and accused the Modi government of getting the second half of the budget session washed out, while asserting that if this attitude continued, the country would move towards a ”dictatorship”.

With tricolour in hand, several Opposition MPs marched from Parliament to Vijay Chowk and later representatives of 19 parties held a press conference at the Constitution Club where Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and other leaders resolved to take the Opposition unity further.

Source: Press Trust of India