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In this editorial episode, Mr. Sujit Nair discusses the recent meeting of the I.N.D.I.A. Alliance held in Mumbai. The two-day gathering of the Opposition INDIA alliance in Mumbai concluded on Friday, with the group deciding to jointly participate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections ""to the extent possible."" They emphasized that seat-sharing arrangements in various states will be finalized as soon as possible through a cooperative approach. Several leaders from the Opposition bloc, including Uddhav Thackeray of Shiv Sena (UBT), Mallikarjun Kharge, the President of Congress, Rahul Gandhi, a prominent Congress leader, Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar, and Lalu Prasad, former Chief Minister of Bihar and leader of RJD, addressed the press conference. Rahul Gandhi highlighted two significant outcomes of the two-day session: the formation of a coordination committee and the forthcoming discussion on a seat-sharing formula, with a resolution to be presented soon.

Key figures from the opposition bloc, known as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), engaged in intensive discussions during the first day of their third joint meeting in Mumbai on Thursday. They aimed to establish a clear strategy to challenge the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in preparation for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

#INDIAAlliance #OppositionMeeting #RahulGandhi #PMModi #NDA #SujitNair #Opposition #ArvindKejriwal #SharadPawar #MallikarjunKharge #Congress #BJP #HWNews
Transcript
00:00 Namaskar, welcome to another episode of editorial.
00:05 Now everyday I think I will talk to you about Pew Research but it gets pushed.
00:09 Yesterday it got pushed because of Adani story, today it is getting pushed because of India
00:14 Alliance story.
00:15 So I will do it tomorrow.
00:17 But let's talk about India Alliance.
00:20 Today India Alliance finished their two day long meeting and they had a press conference,
00:27 I was there in that press conference.
00:29 So let's talk about India Alliance and what happened in their meeting.
00:37 So like I said, today the two day meeting of India Alliance concluded.
00:46 It concluded with the press conference.
00:48 I was also there for the press conference.
00:51 So a lot of what I am going to tell you now is what I saw, I experienced, I felt and it
00:57 is my analysis, my opinion, taken up.
01:00 So I will tell you both.
01:02 I will tell you the good part of it and I will tell you the not so good part of it.
01:06 Both I will present to you today.
01:11 Let's talk about the good part, isn't it?
01:12 Let's talk about the good part first.
01:15 The good part is that one, is that those people sitting there in the screen that you see,
01:22 all of those leaders, you know, they are there together not because they love working with
01:28 each other, neither because they love each other, nor are they friendly to each other.
01:34 They were there together because of a clear need.
01:40 A need which each of them are very mindful of.
01:45 And that need is that if they have to survive, they have to survive after 2024, 2025, if
01:52 their parties have to survive, they have to stick together.
01:56 So the bond here, the bond here is not ideology, not affection, love, friendship, those are
02:04 not there.
02:05 The bond here is need.
02:06 You know what, need is a very strong bond.
02:10 So that's the point number one.
02:12 The point number two is that as on today, nobody is throwing their ambition on the ring.
02:23 Nobody is doing that.
02:25 Nobody is pitching for prime ministership or conveyor ship or whatever.
02:30 Nobody is putting pressure.
02:33 Everybody in that forum, in that room, it looked as if they first want this show to
02:39 get on the road.
02:40 That was the first thing that they wanted to do.
02:42 Why possibly it will happen?
02:45 Now the last thing about the good part of the story is that they have managed to make
02:52 committees.
02:53 So they have managed to make committees.
02:55 They made India Alliance, first a 13-member committee, that is with K.C.
02:59 Venugopal, Sharath Pawar, M.K.
03:01 Stalin, Sanjay Rao, Tejaswini Yadav, Abhishek Banerjee, Raghav Chadda, Javed Ali Khan, Lallan
03:08 Singh, Hemant Soren, D.Raja, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti.
03:12 They made a 13-member team, which is the core committee.
03:14 Then they made a coordination committee, which has K.C.
03:17 Venugopal, Sharath Pawar, T.R.
03:19 Balu, Hemant Soren, Sanjay Rao, Tejaswini Yadav, Abhishek Banerjee, Raghav Chadda, Javed Ali
03:25 Khan, Lallan Singh, D.Raja, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti and C.P.I.M.
03:29 I have still not given the name.
03:31 They said we will give you our name later on.
03:34 Then they have made a campaign committee, which is also a 19-member committee.
03:37 They have made a working group for social media committee, which is also a 12-member
03:42 committee.
03:43 They have made another working group for media, which is another 19-member committee headed
03:48 by Jairam Ramesh and Manoj Jha.
03:50 And then there is a working group of research, which they have made, which is also 11-member
03:55 committee.
03:56 So the point I am trying to make is they have made their committees and all that.
03:59 So these committees are now going to look into specific issues like media, like social
04:03 media, like coordination and so on and so forth, advertising and so on and so forth.
04:08 So this is very good, concrete, done, delivered, sealed.
04:13 Rather done, sealed and delivered.
04:15 My apologies.
04:16 The major problems are not solved.
04:22 Now let us come to the negative part of it.
04:24 See this two-day meeting did not take any major decision.
04:31 Because possibly they did not want to push each other.
04:34 They wanted this meeting to go well, especially under the current circumstances.
04:40 Which means, you see we were supposed to see the logo today.
04:42 That is what I was given to understand.
04:44 That, you know, especially from a lot of senior members of Congress, I was told that there
04:48 is a logo unveiling that is going to happen today and the advertising streak in me, I
04:53 was very excited to see what the logo is going to look like.
04:56 Nothing happened.
04:57 No logo, ogo and all happened.
04:58 That is a small thing.
05:01 See I was also under the impression that there will be a conveyor who will be kind of nominated
05:07 today.
05:08 No conveyor was elected, nominated, whatever.
05:11 No conveyor.
05:12 While Mallika Arjun Kharge was given a lot of respect and he was treated like a leader
05:18 of the group, but there was no conveyor.
05:20 So that is another question mark.
05:22 Third is a lot of things.
05:25 No seat adjustments.
05:26 There is no decision on the seat adjustments.
05:31 I am not saying therefore I was expecting that the entire seat adjustments and all are
05:36 going to be sorted and you know everything will be done and delivered.
05:40 I didn't expect that.
05:41 But still I expected some roadmap towards seat adjustments and how seat adjustments
05:47 are going to happen.
05:48 You know, even today both Mr. Aditya Thackeray, who actually came and expressed to the group
05:56 about what was the resolution passed, he also said that to the best of ability we will be
06:01 sharing seats.
06:02 To the best of ability.
06:03 To the best of ability we will be working together.
06:06 So these best of abilities, especially coming from a politician is dangerous, Baba.
06:10 So I was under the impression, I got the feeling, and even with talking to these politicians
06:16 individually, off camera, I got a feeling that they are not, nothing much has been kind
06:25 of finalized on this one.
06:26 So that was point number three.
06:28 Finalization, nothing has been done.
06:30 Means the sensitive issues, you know, these sensitive issues have not been touched.
06:35 They have touched all goody-goody issues.
06:37 That we will make this committee, we will make that committee, we will make this committee.
06:42 All those non-sensitive issues, easy problems have been sorted.
06:46 But the difficult problems are still not resolved.
06:49 They have not come to a conclusion on that.
06:51 So that's number one.
06:53 That's number two.
06:54 That's the second thing that I saw, I thought was kind of, I was expecting more and it didn't
07:01 happen.
07:02 So that's point number three.
07:05 Point number four is, I also found that, you know, I could not really make out, I could
07:18 not really make out as to what direction that this entire group was going.
07:24 In fact, Rahul Gandhi's speech, I should say, over all the other speeches, Rahul Gandhi's
07:29 speech was direct.
07:30 He spoke about Modi and Adani.
07:32 He spoke directly about Modi and Adani.
07:35 Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav's speech was always as funny and as jovial as it could be.
07:40 It was a cute speech.
07:42 Everybody liked it.
07:43 In fact, he was the only person who got claps from the media.
07:45 So yeah, I mean, his speech was that.
07:47 But that clear understanding, because I'll tell you what, you see, from a marketing perspective,
07:53 the only good thing I saw in their entire proposition was that their proposition was
07:59 fantastic.
08:00 It is, "Judega Bharat, Jeetega India".
08:02 You know, those lines, that line was beautiful.
08:06 Whoever coined that line, it is a brilliant line, brilliant line, because they took care
08:12 of Bharat, which was something that BJP was trying to take, you know, hold of, and they
08:17 took care of India.
08:18 So India also they owned, Bharat also they owned.
08:22 "Judega Bharat, Jeetega India".
08:26 I thought, I was hoping to hear a lot of that from those leaders there.
08:32 Nobody spoke about it.
08:34 Nobody spoke about it.
08:35 That thing was playing in the background, but nobody spoke about it.
08:41 The speeches that were given were, yeah, I mean, it was all anti-Modi speech.
08:45 "Modi aisa kya, Modi aisa kya".
08:47 All that is fine.
08:48 But there was no clear direction that I thought, you know, I would see from India.
08:55 Because if it is India alliance, then there are so many parties, 27-30 parties together,
09:00 I thought that by now they would have at least thought of a clear communication strategy
09:07 to the press.
09:08 At least that I thought didn't happen.
09:10 So that was my point of view.
09:14 Couple of surprises were that, Vanchit Bahujan Agadi with Mr. Ambedkar, Mr. Prakash Ambedkar,
09:20 he did not join the gang.
09:23 What he told us, our correspondent that he was never invited.
09:27 So he didn't come.
09:28 So Vanchit Bahujan Agadi didn't join the today's meeting.
09:33 So I was surprised.
09:34 I thought he would be there because he has already announced his alliance with Shiva
09:37 Sena, but he was not there.
09:39 And Raju Shetty, Shetkari Sangatna did not join the alliance.
09:44 So those were the surprises.
09:45 But otherwise everything was as they planned it, everything was fine.
09:50 So this was broadly what the show was.
09:54 Now a few personal opinion, personal point of view.
09:59 You see people of Congress, people from Congress are watching this.
10:03 You know, some of the leaders had to leave because their plane was taking off at 4.30.
10:11 Okay, so some of the people had to leave.
10:15 Jairam Ramesh who is supposed to be the corporate communication head of Congress and also whatever
10:22 the campaign committee head, Jairam Ramesh comes up in the mic in front of the media
10:28 and says, you know what, some people have to go, some people left.
10:32 So don't ask why and all that.
10:34 So now he is telling the press as to don't ask why.
10:40 And I'll tell you why this is relevant.
10:42 Why this is relevant is because, you know, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, they came
10:47 up to the media and said, listen, you know, it's not just us, it is even you guys are
10:51 chained in this government is what they said.
10:54 You guys too are chained.
10:55 Even you guys will be free if we win, if India Alliance win.
11:02 He said, please write something good about us.
11:04 Please talk about us.
11:05 Please talk about our achievement.
11:06 This is what these two senior leaders said.
11:10 And you are expecting the media to do that and you have one person who is this Jairam
11:14 Ramesh who is supposed to be the campaign committee of Congress.
11:18 He is the who's who of Congress as far as campaign is concerned.
11:21 He decides who meets Rahul Gandhi, who doesn't meet who and all that.
11:24 He decides, I guess that's the thing.
11:27 This man comes and says that, you know, so and so leader is not going to be there.
11:30 So don't ask why and all that.
11:31 So that's it.
11:32 End of story.
11:33 He still thinks he is some minister or some royal thing in India and therefore, you know,
11:40 he can command and he can dictate.
11:42 I found that very, very strange.
11:44 That's point number one.
11:45 Point number two is, you know, this concept of not answering questions in India.
11:52 This concept is percolating.
11:54 This concept is spreading rather than percolating.
11:58 Wrong usage of words.
11:59 This concept is spreading.
12:01 Today, after all this, after so many leaders spoke, they just packed off and walked out.
12:09 And Sanjay Raut, who was the coordinator, he just came to the mic and said, we are not
12:14 going to answer any questions.
12:15 End of story.
12:16 Well, you call the press, you call the press and what, you expect them to just listen to
12:24 you, hear you out and walk out?
12:28 If you can't answer the press, why call the press?
12:31 You send them your feeds, live feeds, you send us all your feed and send a press note
12:39 of all this.
12:40 These are anyway press notes.
12:41 Send these press notes.
12:42 These are the committee, this is the committee, this is the people and all that and we will
12:46 just watch.
12:47 Why are you making us waste our time, energy, effort, camera person, that person, this person,
12:52 come all the way there and then watch you guys speak and then come all the way back?
12:57 So I thought, A, I thought this undemocratic pattern of no questions please is spreading
13:07 in this country.
13:09 It started off with our good Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, who normally doesn't have
13:13 press conference and who doesn't take questions.
13:19 Now I see this spreading even in India Alliance.
13:23 I was deeply upset with that.
13:27 This is my sum up of the India Alliance meetings and tomorrow I promise you, let's talk pure
13:35 research.
13:36 Till I see you tomorrow, that's at 10 pm.
13:39 Namaskar.
13:40 [music]

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