#News #In Mamata Banerjee's "Step Back", Omar Abdullah Sees Win For Opposition

Mamata Banerjee, who has taken the lead to persuade opposition parties to join hands to defeat the BJP in 2019, will be in Delhi next week to invite major parties to her mega rally in Kolkata in January.

National Conference chief Omar Abdullah met Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Friday

KOLKATA: 

Concerned that a scramble among opposition parties to project their leaders for the pole position in next year's general election could hurt the united front, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the BJP's strategy was to go for a presidential form of election campaign with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the lead role and in the same breath, asked opposition parties to "sacrifice everything".

"Please don't pick and choose a particular name to divide us," she said after meeting National Conference chief Omar Abdullah in Kolkata.

For now, Ms Banerjee, 63, suggested their main task was to get opposition parties together. She expects most non-NDA parties - except one or two which have state compulsions - to be part of the front that she has been trying to stitch up.

Omar Abdullah, who spoke to the media on his way out, said it was too early to be talking of who could be the prime minister. "Our effort, for now, should be that we fight the BJP," Mr Abdullah said.

"If we start talking about the name today, it will hurt the objective that we have set out to achieve," he said, echoing Ms Banerjee,

Ms Banerjee had taken the lead to persuade opposition parties to join hands to defeat the BJP after the ruling party, that once appeared invincible, was defeated in recent by-elections in Uttar Pradesh where the state's two big opposition parties, Mayawati's BSP and Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi party.

It has since then made a concerted effort to deride opposition unity, at times ridiculing them for burying their differences to work together and at others, projecting them as a group of power-hungry politicians.PM Modi played on this sentiment when he mocked Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his unwanted hug last week. "Why this hurry to come to power?" PM Modi asked, his return fire to Mr Gandhi's sharp attack earlier in the day.

The Congress countered the perception this week, signalling that party boss Rahul Gandhi was open to pass over the prime minister's post in next year's general election if need be.

But it led to a scramble among leaders of opposition parties trying to project their respective party leader as an acceptable face. Ms Banerjee's party Trinamool Congress was one of those which had made the move, describing the Bengal chief minister as "one of the most senior leader in this matrix".

Mr Abdullah attempted to address the perception that she was impatient and pointed to reporters, how Ms Banerjee, who had been standing next to him, had taken "two steps back" when a question about the opposition's prime ministerial face were asked.

He went on to assert that for now, Ms Banerjee still had an unfinished agenda in the state.

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But he wasn't ruling her out from the PM's race. "We will take Mamata to the national capital so that she can replicate the work that she did in Kolkata for the entire country," he added.