SENSATIONAL POLITICAL PLOT: Opposition may attempt mass resignations to pressure government into early General Elections

In a massive political development that may have overwhelming implications on the nation's electoral landscape, Republic TV has exclusively learnt that the Opposition is attempting an audacious plan entailing a mass resignation of Members of Parliament (MPs) in an effort to pile pressure on the Narendra Modi-led NDA government for early general elections.

As per top Republic TV sources, the Opposition has pinned an aggressive target that they hope will lead to the resignations of over a 100 MPs across several Opposition parties. Through the mass resignation strategy, the agenda of the Opposition is to corner Prime Minister Narendra Modi by cashing in on the prevailing political discord around issues such as Special Category status for Andhra Pradesh, the attempt to impeach the Chief Justice of India, and others.

Sources say that the machinations to have Parliamentarians resign en masse is being chalked out by a combination that is led by but not restricted to the Congress, Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Andhra Pradesh chief minister Naidu had held a number of meetings, including with Pawar and various leaders of the Congress party during his two-day high-profile visit to New Delhi this week.

Interestingly, earlier today, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy tweeted that YSRCP MPs will submit their resignations and challenged Naidu’s MPs to follow suit.

Should the entire plan to get the united Opposition to resign from Parliament in protest of the Narendra Modi government go through, the political implications could be significant.

Top sources had detailed the reasons for the Opposition to call for en-masse resignations ahead of 2019. Here’s what they had to say:

1. The Opposition is trying to set the stage for an early election to reap the benefits of what they call anti-Modi wave:

The mass resignation plot has been designed to pressurise the Modi government over the various issues that have escalated to national talking points. These issues include cornering the Government on the Special Status demand for Andhra Pradesh, the PNB scam, the SC/ST Act order, the Cauvery water-sharing dispute.

2. To show complete Opposition unity:

In order to take on the might of the BJP electorally, the Opposition is trying to gain strength from a show of numbers with their newly-cobbled anti-Modi alliance.

This week, Chandrababu Naidu held an aggressive round of meetings with various Oppositions in New Delhi including Sharad Pawar, Farooq Abdullah, members of the Congress, amongst others.

Mamata Banerjee and Telangana Chief Minister KCR had a high-profile meeting in Kolkata, while the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party  cast aside years-worth of differences to come together to defeat the BJP in two crucial Lok Sabha by-polls in Uttar Pradesh where seats that had earlier belonged to UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.

3. To wash their hands off the Parliamentary ruckus charge:

While the BJP has alleged that the united Opposition has been disrupting Parliament to a degree that it has not been able to function, sources tell us, that these parties are likely to use the mass resignation plan as an escape route from the charge.

4. To corner the Prime Minister:

The General election is being seen as an ‘all versus Modi’ election wherein the entire Opposition--despite ideological differences and rivalries-- seem to be coming together to try and defeat the Prime Minister electorally. Sources tell us that having failed to file a no-confidence motion against the Government, the Opposition is plotting the mass resignations as another strategy to corner Prime Minister Narendra Modi in terms of perception ahead of the general election.

The TDP, YSRCP and Congress each attempted to move no-confidence motions against the Union Cabinet in the second half of the budget session. Five MPs of the YSRCP tendered their resignations to the Lok Sabha speaker on Friday, following which YSR supremo Jagan Mohan Reddy challenged Chandrababu Naidu to have his MPs do the same.