Will work for opposition alliance to take on BJP in 2024: NCP

The NCP on Tuesday said it will make every effort to form a broad-based alliance of parties, including the Congress, to take on the BJP in 2024, but distanced itself from Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjees barbs at the grand old party.Briefing reporters on the deliberations of the NCP working committee, party spokesperson Nawab Malik said people of the country were fed up with the BJP government at the Centre and were yearning for change in 2024.We will make every effort to unite all non-BJP parties, including the Congress, to forge an alternative to the BJP.

The NCP on Tuesday said it will make every effort to form a broad-based alliance of parties, including the Congress, to take on the BJP in 2024, but distanced itself from Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's barbs at the grand old party.

Briefing reporters on the deliberations of the NCP working committee, party spokesperson Nawab Malik said people of the country were ''fed up'' with the BJP government at the Centre and were yearning for change in 2024.

''We will make every effort to unite all non-BJP parties, including the Congress, to forge an alternative to the BJP. People want change in 2024. If an alternative alliance is formed, there will be change in 2024,'' Malik said, but remained silent on the leadership of such an alliance. He said NCP chief Sharad Pawar has been stressing on the need to unite all opposition parties to form a broad-based alternative to the BJP. ''The UPA does not have all parties. Non-UPA parties have more MPs than the UPA. If those people are not brought together, forming a large alternative will be difficult,'' Malik said.

The NCP's remarks on an alternative to the BJP came on a day Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut met former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, days after Banerjee had declared that the UPA was dead. She had also taken potshots at Gandhi, virtually questioning the Congress's leadership of the opposition grouping. On the upcoming assembly elections in five states, Malik said the NCP was in talks with the Congress for a pre-poll alliance in Goa and Uttarakhand, while communication channels were open with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav for a possible tie up in Uttar Pradesh.

The NCP also adopted resolutions extending support the agitating farmers in their fight for a legal cover to the minimum support price for farm produce and compensation to the next of kin of farmers who died during the year-long protests.

The party decided to launch nationwide protests on the issue of price rise, particularly the high prices of petroleum products.

Malik said the internal elections of the NCP will be held next year which will be followed by a national convention in Delhi on June 9 and 10.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)