Third Front

 Trinamool, AAP Among 8 Political Parties At Sharad Pawar's Home For Meet

Those associated with the event clarified that the gathering had nothing to do with putting together a Third Front.

All IndiaReported by Arvind Gunasekar, Edited by Deepshikha GhoshUpdated: June 22, 2021 5:28 pm IST

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Trinamool, AAP Among 8 Political Parties At Sharad Pawar's Home For Meet

Eight political parties were present at the meeting

New Delhi: A meeting at veteran politician Sharad Pawar's house today, which drew outsized attention over reports of a Third Front effort, featured eight political parties including Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, the Left and Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha, whose outfit Rashtra Manch organised the meeting, was among the first to arrive. He had asked Sharad Pawar to host the meeting, described as a gathering to "debate current events".

Eight political parties were present at the meeting. National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, Majid Memon and Vandana Chauhan from Mr Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party, RLD's Jayant Choudhary, Samawadi Party's Ghanshyam Tiwari and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)'s Sushil Gupta were among those who attended.

Others at the gathering were retired Justice AP Shah, former ambassador KC Singh and lyricist Javed Akhtar. Senior lawyer KTS Tulsi, former chief election commissioner SY Qureshi and senior lawyer Colin Gonsalves skipped the meet.

With Mr Pawar, one of India's most experienced politicians and a sharp negotiator, playing host, the meeting was projected by many as the first steps towards forming an opposition front to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP in the 2024 national election.

However, those associated with the event clarified that the gathering had nothing to do with putting together a Third Front.

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"Yashwant Sinha heads the Rashtra Manch. He asked to meet with Mr Pawar. So the meeting is an initiative of the Rashtra Manch," said NCP leader Praful Patel.

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Sources close to Sharad Pawar said neither he nor his party had put out any invitations. "This is a highly overrated and speculative meeting," they said.

Jun 22 2021 @ 16:25PMహోంజాతీయంమూడో ఫ్రంట్‌ బీజేపీని సవాలు చేయలేదు : ప్రశాంత్ కిశోర్అన్నపూర్ణ మ్యారేజెస్ - అన్ని కులాల వారికి పెళ్లి సంబంధాలు చూడబడునుప్రవేశం ఉచితంPH: 9397979740/50

న్యూఢిల్లీ : భారతీయ జనతా పార్టీని దీటుగా ఎదుర్కొనేందుకు మూడో ఫ్రంట్ కానీ, నాలుగో ఫ్రంట్ కానీ వస్తుందనే నమ్మకం తనకు లేదని ఎన్నికల ప్రచార వ్యూహకర్త ప్రశాంత్ కిశోర్ అన్నారు. బీజేపీని 2024 లోక్‌సభ ఎన్నికల్లో ఎదుర్కొనేందుకు థర్డ్ ఫ్రంట్ ఏర్పాటుకు సన్నాహాలు జరుగుతున్నట్లు వార్తలు వస్తున్న నేపథ్యంలో ఆయన ఈ వ్యాఖ్యలు చేశారు. 

ప్రశాంత్ కిశోర్ ఓ టీవీ ఛానల్‌తో మాట్లాడుతూ, ‘‘ప్రస్తుత ప్రభుత్వాన్ని విజయవంతంగా సవాల్ చేయగలిగే థర్డ్ లేదా ఫోర్త్ ఫ్రంట్ వస్తుందనే నమ్మకం నాకు లేదు’’ అన్నారు. థర్డ్ ఫ్రంట్ ప్రయోగం గతంలో జరిగిందని, దీనికి పరీక్షలు ఎదురయ్యాయని, ఇది పాతబడిపోయిందని అన్నారు. ప్రస్తుత రాజకీయ పరిస్థితులకు థర్డ్ ఫ్రంట్ తగినది కాదన్నారు. శరద్ పవార్‌తో తాను తీవ్రమైన రాజకీయ చర్చలు జరిగినట్లు తెలిపారు. బీజేపీపై పోరాటానికి చేయవలసినదేమిటో రాష్ట్రాలవారీగా చర్చించినట్లు తెలిపారు. థర్డ్ ఫ్రంట్ తరహా వ్యవస్థను ఏర్పాటు చేయడం ప్రస్తుతం తమ దృష్టిలో లేదన్నారు. 

ఎన్‌సీపీ చీఫ్ శరద్ పవార్‌తో ప్రశాంత్ కిశోర్ వరుస భేటీలు జరుపుతుండటంతోపాటు కొందరు ప్రతిపక్ష నేతలు కూడా మంగళవారం సమావేశమయ్యారు. శరద్ పవార్ నివాసంలో జరిగిన ఈ సమావేశంలో ఎన్‌సీపీ, ఏఏపీ, టీఎంసీ, ఆర్జేడీ, సమాజ్‌వాదీ పార్టీ, ఆర్ఎల్‌డీ, నేషనల్ కాన్ఫరెన్స్ నేతలతోపాటు కొందరు పాత్రికేయులు, ఇతర రంగాల ప్రముఖులు పాల్గొన్నారు. 

"Not A Third Front Meet": On Gathering At Sharad Pawar's, A Clarification

One reason the meeting had captured so much political attention was Sharad Pawar's talks with poll strategist Prashant Kishor yesterday.

All IndiaReported by Sreenivasan Jain, Edited by Deepshikha GhoshUpdated: June 22, 2021 10:56 am IST

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Sharad Pawar is hosting a meeting of "Rashtra Manch" at his place today.

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New Delhi: Veteran politician Sharad Pawar is "not hosting a third front meeting" today, it was clarified shortly before what now appears to be a gathering of politicians and intellectuals to "debate current events".

Former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha, a former BJP leader who recently joined the Trinamool Congress, tweeted last evening that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar was hosting a meeting of his "Rashtra Manch", a political action group he set up in 2018.

Those associated with the event were at pains to clarify that the gathering has nothing to do with putting together a Third Front to fight Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP in the 2024 election.

Besides politicians, "eminent people from various fields" have been invited to the meeting, which diminishes the political heft that it was given at first, when the news broke.

Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut said: "I don't believe this is an opposition gathering because it doesn't have Shiv Sena, Samajwadi Party, BSP and Chandrababu Naidu. Maybe this is the first initiative to bring the opposition together."

The Manch, which meets regularly, has an open-ended membership, said ex-Janata Dal United leader Pavan Varma, one of its regulars. "We invite members from different parties and walks of life, except the BJP," Mr Varma said.

The invitees include senior advocate KTS Tulsi, former chief election commissioner SY Qureshi, former ambassador KC Singh, lyricist Javed Akhtar, filmmaker Pritish Nandy, senior lawyer Colin Gonsalves, media personalities Karan Thapar and Ashutosh, said NCP leader Nawab Mallik.

National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, who is also invited, said his son Omar Abdullah would attend the meet.

One reason the meeting captured so much political attention yesterday was Mr Pawar's talks with ace poll strategist Prashant Kishor just before the details came out. This was their second meeting in two weeks and there was furious speculation that a third front was in the making. Mr Pawar is known for his networking skills and has helped cobble many an unlikely coalition.

But hours later, Prashant Kishor distanced himself from the meeting and ruled out any association with an opposition front to take on the BJP in the next general election. 

"I don't believe a Third or Fourth Front could emerge as a successfully challenge to the current dispensation," he told NDTV, adding that the 'tried and tested' Third Front model was archaic and not suited to the current political dynamic.

That effectively confirmed that today's meeting had nothing to do with any strategy talks the two may have had.

Mr Kishor said his one-on-one meetings with the NCP chief were for both men to get to know each other better. They had hardcore political discussions, going state-by-state to explore the possibility of what will work in the fight against the BJP and what won't, according to the master strategist.

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Mr Kishor, who helped craft Mamata Banerjee's successful Bengal election campaign, said her victory sent a message to all opposition parties that "they too can stand up to the BJP and give them a contest".

Sharad Pawar calls opposition meeting on Tuesday, excludes Congress

While the move is not without its internal political contradictions, "much more than Narendra Modi, it is the Congress that needs to worry", said a former Congress chief minister

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Sharad Pawar | Opposition parties | Indian National Congress

Aditi Phadnis  |  New Delhi 

Last Updated at June 21, 2021 22:55 IST

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NCP Chief Sharad Pawar in Mumbai

Prashant Kishor has had two rounds of meeting with Pawar

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With former finance minister Yashwant Sinha by his side and political strategist Prashant Kishor as his sherpa, veteran political leader with across-the-board acceptability, Sharad Pawar, has launched a new political initiative to unite the non-Congress opposition with a view to defeating the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The NCP supremo has invited all non-Congress political parties to his Delhi residence for a meeting on Tuesday that could set off a round of ‘conclave’ politics that was a dominant feature of Indian politics in the decades of the 1980s and led to a new alignment of forces that forced the Congress out of its dominant political position for many years to come.

Pawar’s initiative pointedly excludes the Congress. While the move is not without its internal political contradictions, “much more than Narendra Modi, it is the Congress that needs to worry”, said a former Congress chief minister.

Meanwhile, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has called for a meeting of party officebearers to discuss ways to address multiple challenges, including high petrol prices.

Prashant Kishor has had two rounds of meeting with Pawar. In the first three-hour round, among other things, the two discussed the possibility of the Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena joining up for the Brihannmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. When a senior Congress leader called on Pawar in Mumbai (who was convalescing after surgery of his mouth), he said the NCP leader conceded to him that a large opposition grouping that excluded the Congress would not be strong enough to challenge the BJP). But apparently Kishor told him otherwise and Congress leaders are homing in on Prashant Kishore’s influence on Pawar to turn him away from the Congress.

Within days of that meeting, Pawar is making his moves, surefooted and agile. The expectation is that even if senior leaders like K Chandrashekhara Rao (Telangana CM and leader of the TRS), MK Stalin (Tamil Nadu CM and leader of the DMK) and Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal CM and leader of the TMC) are unable to attend, they will send representatives senior enough to indicate their engagement. It is not yet clear if the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), an ally of the BJP till recently, has been invited. Sources advising the SAD said the upcoming assembly elections in Punjab will not yield the kind of decisive victory the Congress is seeking and the SAD would like to keep its options open if it has to approach the BJP for help in forming a government.

The CPI (M)-led Left Front has an alliance with Sharad Pawar’s NCP in Kerala. CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury and Pawar have been in close touch. But Mamata Banerjee’s TMC and the Left parties are bitter rivals in Bengal. Can the two groups sink their differences in the large cause of national unity against the BJP? This will be evident on Tuesday, but many Congress leaders think this is not a deal-breaker when opposition to Modi is involved. The group that is most on the back foot is the Congress. Leaders were brave in public but conceded privately that the initiative had been taken and the Congress was nowhere in the picture: “In the given situation, there is not much he (Pawar) can do)” said a Congress leader. “But the meeting is going to be crucial. And it will lay bare before the world, the irrelevance of the Congress leadership.”

Pawar’s lieutenants had, some months ago, flagged the issue of the leadership of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) wondering why the Congress was doing nothing to make UPA a serious and active vehicle of the opposition. His supporters had suggested that Pawar might make a better chairman of the UPA.

Some months ago, before the West Bengal elections, Banerjee had written to all opposition parties, including the Congress, imploring that they come together to jointly oppose the “undemocratic” politics of the BJP. The letter met with a tepid response. But Pawar’s initiative, given his seniority and his capacity to negotiate, might not meet the same fate. “It is the Congress that should have made this move. It is tragic that we let someone else do it,” said a Congress leader.