New Delhi: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin will on Monday inaugurate the first national convention of the All India Federation for Social Justice, an initiative of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam which will be attended by leaders of 19 opposition parties.
Congress Party’s Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, Samajwadi Party’s former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Jammu and Kashmir’s former National Conference Minister Farooq Abdullah and Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien will speak at the event titled “Taking Forward the Struggle for Social Justice and Joint National Program for Social Justice Movement”.
The conference will be held on hybrid mode, in Delhi and on Zoom.
DMK President Stalin, who launched the AIFSJ in February 2022, will deliver the presidential address online from Chennai. “The idea is to provide a common platform to unite like-minded leaders, politicians, activists, organizations and civil society,” said a DMK leader on condition of anonymity.
He said that the purpose of the conference is to be a platform for these members to come up with a road map for furthering the principles of social justice in India and a common minimum program to be adopted uniformly by all the states.
The Aam Aadmi Party has nominated MP Sanjay Singh to address the convention. K Keshav Rao of Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi will deliver a special address. DMK’s allies will also speak.
Last month, non-Bharatiya Janata Party leaders flew in to celebrate Stalin’s 70th birthday on March 1, where they collectively pitched for an opposition alliance ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Stalin had said that everyone should shed their ego to fight the BJP unitedly and that “talk of a third front is futile”. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Abdullah, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav echoed the sentiments.
In February 2022, Stalin wrote to the 37 leaders, stating that they needed to unite to fight the threat of fundamentalism and religious hegemony and asked each party to nominate a representative for the AIFSJ.
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