Opposition Political Parties Fighting For Liberty Of All People: P Chidambaram

Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday said coming together of different opposition political parties should bring in realization that they are fighting for the liberty of all people.

Chidambaram’s remarks came a day after leaders of 19 opposition parties announced that they would organise joint protests across the country, from September 20 to 30.

“Bhakts and trolls will ridicule the show of unity, but they should remember the famous words of the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller. Cynics will scoff at the effort, but they will realize one day that we are fighting for the liberty of all people, including the cynics,” the former Union minister tweeted.

After a virtual meeting of the opposition parties, where they stressed on unitedly moving forward to defeat the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the leaders also put out an 11-point charter of demands before the government.

Referring to the development, Chidambaram said those who prize freedom above every other right must welcome the pledge of unity.

On Friday, Congress president Sonia Gandhi urged the top opposition leaders to rise above political compulsions to take on the BJP in the interest of the nation and start planning “systematically” to realise the “ultimate goal” of winning the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to provide a government that believes in the values of the freedom movement and provisions of the Constitution.

Gandhi gave the clarion call at a virtual meeting of leaders of 19 opposition parties including NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and four non-Congress chief ministers — TMC’s Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), DMK’s M K Stalin (Tamil Nadu), Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray (Maharashtra) and JMM’s Hemant Soren (Jharkhand) — hosted by her.

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav wrote a letter to the Congress president, expressing his inability to join the meeting. (With PTI inputs)