Former BJP ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie on Saturday shared dias with a conglomeration of opposition leaders here and pushed for intensive efforts to oust the Narendra Modi government, feeling it was doable.
Both Sinha and Shourie suggested that opposition parties should field joint candidates against BJP nominees in every Lok Sabha constituency in the General elections.
"I request all the opposition parties to decide collectively and field a common candidate against the BJP candidate in every Lok Sabha constituency to ensure defeat of the BJP in the elections," Sinha said while addressing the grand opposition rally under the aegis of Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) here on Saturday.
"If you oppose this government you will be tagged as anti-national and if you appease the government you are nationalist and country lover. When I said that peace in Kashmir will come through love and harmony, I was dubbed as Pakistani agent and anti-national," he noted.
Sinha, who resigned from the BJP on April 21 alleging the government of undermining democratic institutions, said: "This is the first government since independence that plays with the figures, manipulates it and projects it as their big achievement."
Arun Shourie advocated that the Opposition must unite together for 'one goal, one vow' and that should be to "outcast the BJP". He said, "All of us should have one goal, one vow and that should be to outcast the BJP. Our focus should not be how to ally with. We must proceed with a sense of sacrifice and not with a sense of calculation."
He also claimed that the BJP could have been defeated in the Gujarat Assembly elections had the opposition united. Citing examples of the recent defeat of BJP in the Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assembly polls, he asserted that it is not impossible to remove the party from power.
The former Finance minister accused the BJP of going to any extent to satiate their hunger for power. "Prime Minister Modi also realises that he is losing his grip over people. But they can go to any extent for power," he said.
Attacking the Amit Shah-led party over alleged poaching of MLAs in Karnataka, Shourie asserted, "Today we are seeing this in Karnataka, tomorrow it can be Madhya Pradesh. We have to be united and alert."
Suggesting that the opposition parties should unitedly pitch one common candidate against the BJP, he asserted: "People have lost faith in Shah-Modi. Now we have to give people the confidence that we are united."
He also claimed that initially the Opposition was united because of Prime Minister Modi but today it is because of Mamata Banerjee.
"One man who united the Opposition was Modi, but today it is the Bengal's tigress who has put in the effort by organising this rally. Such rallies should be conducted in other parts of the country also where the opposition parties are strong," Shourie added.
The TMC-led anti-BJP rally is being attended by a host of leaders including SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, ????.....among others.
Earlier in the day, union minister and BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had said opposition leaders were 'tired' and 'defeated' wrestlers who want to re-enter the ring to try their luck.
"They all are tired and defeated wrestlers who want to enter the ring again to try their luck. They are forming alliance to fight against the strongest government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he told ANI.
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