D Raja, a leader of the Communist Party of India (CPI), and Sharad Pawar, the president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), held discussions at Pawar's residence in Mumbai. Their meeting focused on exploring the possibility of creating an alternative to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This meeting took place just a day after the BJP's loss in the Karnataka elections.
After the meeting, Pawar spoke to the reporters and suggested that the strategy that worked in Karnataka needs to be applied in other states as well. He emphasized the need for like-minded parties to come together and collaborate on a common minimum programme (CMP) to achieve this.
"The Karnataka assembly elections have given a message. We need to work on creating a situation like Karnataka in other states. The Congress alone gave an alternative to the BJP in Karnataka, but in other states, like-minded parties will have to work on a common minimum programme (CMP)," Pawar said.
We will work on both fronts (of creating a strategy like Karnataka and the CMP) and we are starting this process, he added.
D Raja spoke about a common understanding to defeat the BJP.
"The state-level strategy can be worked out. We may find some time to interact in Delhi now. The BJP can be defeated and it will lose the 2024 parliamentary as well as state (Maharashtra) elections. The myth of the party being invincible has been broken," he said referring to the Karnataka poll outcome.