Opposition divided over CAA? After Trinamool, BSP likely to skip Monday’s meeting

NEW DELHI: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is likely to skip a meeting of opposition parties convened on Monday to discuss the situation arising out of violence on various university campuses and protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

Sources in the BSP said the party may not send a representative at the meet due to its differences with the Congress.

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has already announced its decision to stay away from the meet.

On December 17 last year, when the Opposition parties had approached President Ram Nath Kovind seeking his intervention on the issue of violence in central universities against the amended Citizenship law, the BSP had not joined them.

A parliamentary delegation of the BSP, however, had met Kovind on December 18 to discuss the issue.

Trinamool chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on January 9 said she would not attend the meeting called by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Accusing the Congress and the Left of playing “dirty politics” Mamata said in Kolkata that she would fight against the CAA-NRC alone as the opposition politics in the state was against their national stand.

“I have decided not to attend the meeting convened by Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi as I don’t support the violence that the Left and the Congress unleashed in West Bengal yesterday (Wednesday),” she said in the Assembly.

“If needed, I will fight alone.”

There were fierce clashes between Trinamool and Left workers in the state during the Bharat bandh.