How Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar played troubleshooters in AAP-Congress tussle

Kharge invited Kejriwal to attend the July 17, however, the latter had remained non-committal to this proposal.

Congress party's decision to support Aam Aadmi Party in its fight against the Union government's Ordinance on Delhi bureaucrats, has helped the Opposition in projecting a unified front before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. As reported by NDTV, Congress had all along intended to oppose the Centre's executive order, however, lack of communication had put the Opposition on a sticky wicket. Finally, this confusion was sorted out after the intervention of two political heavyweights - Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar.

Congress, at the June 23 Opposition meet in Patna, had said that it would not support anything that the BJP does and the INC "believes in the culture of taking everyone along". However, the Grand Old Party went quiet after opposition from its Delhi leaders.

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Meanwhile, AAP persuaded Congress for a "yes", but with a caveat that the latter has to support the Delhi government's battle in the Parliament for the Arvind Kejriwal-led party to attend the Opposition's meet in Patna. With only a few days left for the Monsoon Session, AAP made it clear that it would not budge without a green signal from Congress.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had also contacted Arvind Kejriwal inviting him to attend the July 18 Bengaluru meet. But, Kejriwal remained non-committal to this proposal.

This was the time when Mamata and Nitish took the matter in their hands. They explained to the Congress leadeship that they should make their stand clear on the Ordinance. Else, "the opposition wall will end up with a Delhi-Punjab-sized hole", according to NDTV.

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As AAP refused to budge, Mamata Banerjee reportedly called up Kharge and told him to issue a clarificaion on the matter. Soon, Congress leader KC Venugopal came forward supporting AAP. It was only after this that AAP also confirmed that it would join the Opposition's Bengaluru meet on July 17, 18.

"Today, the Congress party has also cleared its stand against the Ordinance of Delhi and has announced to register its protest. We welcome this announcement of the Congress party. With this, I would like to say that the Aam Aadmi Party will participate in the meeting of opposition parties to be held in Bangalore on July 17-18 under the chairmanship of Arvind Kejriwal," AAP leader Raghav Chadha had announced in the party internal meeting.