Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday sidestepped queries on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal making a pitch for keeping the contentious central ordinance on top of the agenda of the June 23 opposition meet.
The RJD leader also said, “This is not the first meeting of opposition leaders nor is it going to be the last. Leaders of different hues have agreed to meet and they will all raise issues that they feel strongly about. There is no problem with that”.
He was responding to queries from journalists, late in the evening, on the statement by the Aam Aadmi Party chief who has been galvanizing regional leaders in support of his fight against the ordinance that brings Delhi's bureaucracy under the control of the Lieutenant General, who is an appointee of the Centre.
It is being speculated that the Delhi CM has sought to throw a bait for the Congress, which has so far avoided supporting him on the issue. Yadav also mocked the slogan “aayega to Modi hi” that the BJP often raises, to assert that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's return to power for a third term was inevitable.
“They (BJP) seem to have forgotten that nothing is permanent. Nobody is immortal. We ruled the state but then came a time when we had to sit in the opposition,” said the RJD leader whose party now shares power with Nitish Kumar, once an arch-rival of the party's supremo Lalu Prasad.
He added, “The coming Lok Sabha elections, though, are not going to be about one particular leader. It is going to be about the issues faced by the people which seem to have been forgotten. The opposition meeting will aim at devising a programme in which the issues of the people get the political centre-stage”.
Leaders such as Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, M K Stalin, Sharad Pawar, Mehbooba Mufti and Hemant Soren, besides Kejriwal, are expected to take part in the meeting scheduled here on Friday.
