Patna (Bihar): Janata Dal (United) has called a major opposition meeting on June 12 under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Bihar to showcase a united opposition against the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In a meeting held in Patna on Sunday, the JDU finalised June 12 as the date for the opposition parties' meeting as they discussed 'Nitish Kumar Mission 2024'. Confirming the date, Janata Dal (United) leader Manjit Singh said the grand meeting of Opposition parties under the leadership of Nitish Kumar "will send a message to the whole country".
"Change in the country will start from Bihar only. You will see that parties with the same views will stand together," he said. Pertinently, the development comes days after Nitish Kumar met Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi. Nitish is acting as the interlocutor for opposition unity ahead of the 2024 elections.
The biggest challenge for him will be to bring Congress and Delhi and Telangana Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal and K Chandrashekar Rao to the same table. Congress has already stated that it does not trust Kejriwal and KCR.
AICC spokesperson Alok Sharma on Saturday alleged that these two leaders had "helped BJP in the last eight-nine years". "With a full sense of responsibility, as an official spokesperson of the Congress, I assert that we are still not able to trust Kejriwal and KCR," Sharma told reporters at Sadaqat Ashram, the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) headquarters, on Saturday.
To buttress his point, he underscored the Delhi CM's support for the now withdrawn farm bills, besides raking up the AAP founder calling for "arrest" of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to bust corruption. Nonetheless, he added, "We leave it to the discretion of Nitish babu. He may decide whom to take along."
The Congress is the third largest constituent of Bihar's ruling 'Mahagathbandhan', which Kumar, the JD(U) supremo, joined after quitting the BJP-led NDA. Sharma also claimed that the NDA was in the tatters with former BJP allies either parting ways or accusing the saffron party of "backstabbing", while the Congress-led UPA, which has been out of power since 2014, "has remained intact, and even added some new constituents".
Also read: Nitish Kumar meets Kejriwal after Congress' snub to AAP leader
