TMC MP Derek O’Brien proposes formula to take on Modi might in 2019

Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Derek O’Brien believes he has found a way to take the BJP on. The next national election, he says, should not be treated as a battle between Narendra Modi and a single candidate, but as 29 contests in the states.

The opposition should fight the BJP from 29 different regional platforms over diverse issues, O’Brien writes in his new book ‘Inside Parliament: Views From The Front Row’. “The election should be fought in the idiom and language and with the issues and themes of individual states,” he elaborated to PTI today. A united opposition needs to chalk out its poll strategy by pitching all opposition leaders against Modi, he added. “Make this a national election that is a sum of state elections. Make Modi and the BJP fight 29 different regional elections in the idiom and language and with the issues and themes of the individual states,” O’Brien said. O’Brien chalked out the opposition strategy for 2019 in the new publication, which he described as the “real book” out of the 53 that he had written.

“Don’t let the BJP make it a contest around polarising issues,” beef, pseudo-nationalism or some such prime-time, made-for-TV-and-Twitter agenda,” O’ Brien …read more