New Delhi: All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have a clear edge over the Opposition forces in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections if a particular face is pitted against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In conversation with ANI’s Smita Prakash`, the AIMIM chief said the Opposition needs to galvanise in each Lok Sabha constituency to defeat the BJP.
Owaisi said, “The Opposition should look to put up a tough fight for all the 540 parliamentary constituencies. If a single opposition face fights against BJP, the latter will benefit. If it`s Modi versus (Arvind) Kejriwal or Rahul Gandhi, the PM would be at an advantage.”
In 2019, the Opposition had formed a grand alliance in a bid to unseat the Modi government. However, the alliance did not succeed in its objective and eventually fell apart.
With the focus now on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) recently claimed the battle next year will be between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The AAP claimed that the BJP and PM Modi are shaken by Kejriwal`s growing popularity, his model of governance in the national capital, and the AAP expanding electoral footprint in the country.
A known baiter of the BJP at the Centre, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, too, remodelled his party, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi into the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and got recognised as a national party in a bid to upstage the saffron party in the General elections.
On whether Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should be pitted against PM Modi, Owaisi said, “Mamata Banerjee (recently) held a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah. So one is not certain if she should be the Opposition face against PM Modi.”
The West Bengal CM had earlier called on the chief ministers of all Opposition-ruled states to come together and put up a united fight against the BJP in 2024.
“CM Banerjee passes a resolution in the Parliament against BJP, but then praises PM Modi,” said the AIMIM chief.