Congress' Nehru programme to see non-NDA convergence

NEW DELHI: The Congresssponsored November 17-18 international conference in Delhi to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru will witness a choreographed assembling of anti-BJP and non-NDA parties searching for a common ground since the emergence of BJP as a common threat.

The stage for the meeting was set when Congress omitted PM, BJP and NDA allies from its list of invitees. Sharad Pawar-led NCP, the latest tactical friend of Modi-led BJP, who deserted the Congress camp, is also among invitees.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi will join the party brass and workers at function at Talkatora auditorium on Thursday, where they will take a pledge to uphold Nehruvian values. Party sources claimed they “were forced to hold the function a day before Nehru’s birth anniversary because the request for holding the function at Vigyan Bhavan or Talkatora Auditorium on November 14 was turned down by authorities, citing non-availability of the venues”.

On invitation extended to non-NDA parties AICC spokesperson Shakheel Ahmad said, “we have invited those parties which believe in or support Nehruvian values and thoughts.”

The conference is expected to see RJD, SP, JD(U), JD(S) and RLD, bred on anti-Congress politics and who ironically drew ideological inspiration from Ram Manohar Lohia, the original and rabid Nehru-basher, line up.

The resurgent BJP had made members of the erstwhile Janata parivar to recently hold a re-grouping with an expression of interest in framing a broader floor co-ordination with Congress in Parliament. Congress too is in search of new allies, postdefeat.

A unity of the parties could make the NDA government’s capacity to push key bills through in the Rajya Sabha difficult.