The three-member team of senior ministers – Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and M Venkaiah Naidu — who have been assigned to deliberate with other parties will be meeting with Sonia Gandhi and Yechury on Friday. Naidu and Singh are likely to call on Gandhi, it is learnt. Naidu has already spoken to PMK leader Ambumani Ramadoss, All India (NR) Congress leader Ramaswamy, NCP MP Praful Patel and BSP MP Satish Mishra. According to sources, Naidu will also try to meet BSP chief Mayawati.
Jaitley is likely to discuss the matter with Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and JD(U) leader and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar among others. With home minister Rajnath Singh’s good personal equation with TMC leader and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, it is likely that he will talk to her.
The three-member committee have already held their internal meetings as Jaitley and Naidu met over tea on Tuesday and Shah dropped in to join them. On Wednesday morning Naidu went over to meet Singh. At the party headquarters here, Shah held a meeting with his general secretaries Bhupinder Yadav, Kailash Vijaywarghiya and Arun Singh.
Shah’s travel plans for Maharashtra scheduled from Thursday for three days have not been postponed, but since he is in the midst of touring across the country to inprove BJP’s voteshare for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, some other state visits may have to reworked following the need for him to stay in the national capital for the Presidential polls, sources said.
While BJP chief Amit Shah postponed his three-day Odisha tour scheduled for next week, to remain in Delhi for nomination to be filed for election to the top office, the three senior ministers met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, while the opposition parties held a meeting here in Parliament premises on Wednesday to decide on their move on the issue.
