Nagpur: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Monday said that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has the ability to lead everyone in a broad coalition against the BJP and denied that he had suggested an opposition combine minus the Congress.
Raut, who is an MP and the Sena spokesperson, made the remark a day after Rao called on Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai.
Rao also met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar in his efforts to bring together like-minded parties against the BJP at the national level.
Raut said that KCR, as the Telangana leader is known, has the ability to lead by taking everyone along.
Raut added that both the Chief Ministers had agreed that the nation needed a change.
The Sena leader insisted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was set to lose power in Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are now going on.
He denied saying that an opposition front against the BJP will be formed without the Congress.
Raut, whose party shares power with the Congress and the NCP in Maharashtra, said that when Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had suggested a political front to take on the BJP, they pressed her to include the Congress too.
“We never said that a political front will be formed without the Congress. When Mamata Banerjee had suggested a political front, Shiv Sena was the first political party that talked about taking the Congress along,” Raut said.
