Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will attend the June 12 grand meeting of the opposition leaders called by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar in Patna.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Thursday said Thackeray will be present in the meeting expected to be attended by all major opposition leaders. "Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has invited all the big leaders who are not with BJP and all the patriotic parties who want change in 2024, to Patna on 12th June. Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar have also been invited. We are thinking of going to Patna," Raut was quoted as having said by news agency ANI.
Kumar has called the meeting amid renewed efforts to forge unity ahead of the 2024 general elections. Since he quit the NDA last August, Nitish Kumar has been tasked with the herculean effort of uniting the opposition parties in order to stand up to the BJP. Kumar, in the recent past, has held meetings with key figures including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
His mission is to bring together the opposition parties in forming an alliance at the national level, which is being seen as paramount for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections for the opposition to stand any chance against the ruling BJP. As for Thackeray, his government in Maharashtra collapsed last year following the rebellion of 39 MPs led by Eknath Shinde, who broke from the party to form his own faction and later formed ties with BJP, with BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy CM. Thackeray's Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance, now consisting of his (UBT) faction of the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the NCP, stands as the opposition against Shinde's BJP-allied faction in Maharashtra.
