New Delhi: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is on a two-day visit to Delhi, will meetCongress National President Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday, sources said. Kumar arrived in Delhi on Sunday to meet the opposition leaders in a bid to unite the opposition against the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
On the first day of the tour, he met Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal besides Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, while on the second day he will meet Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge. It is learnt that Kumar, during his meeting with Kharge, will finalize the the dates of the proposed meeting of opposition parties in Patna.
It can be recalled that Kumar had said that the meeting in Patna will be held after the Karnataka assembly election. With the elections over now, all eyes are on the Patna meeting of the opposition leaders. Earlier on Sunday, Nitish Kumar had met Arvind Kejriwal. The CM met Tejashwi Yadav, Lalan Singh and Sanjay Jha at the residence of the Chief Minister of Delhi and had a lengthy discussion with them.
Also read: Delhi: CM Nitish to meet Kharge, Kejriwal today, to discuss opposition unity
Later, talking to reporters, Nitish said that more and more opposition parties should come together against the BJP “so that the Constitution can be saved”. Criticizing the central government's decision to bring the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Ordinance 2023, which has scuttled powers of the Delhi government to take decisions over services, Nitish said that he is supporting Kejriwal on the matter.
Talking to reporters after meeting Nitish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal said, 'I am going to have a meeting with Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday. After that I will go to meet the presidents of all the opposition parties in the country. I have also requested Nitish Kumar to talk to all the parties. Whenever this bill comes in Rajya Sabha, then I will talk to everyone for support to defeat it. For this, I will also go to all the states and meet the leaders”.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has been continuously engaged in the efforts of opposition unity for the last few months. In this connection, he has visited Delhi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Mumbai and Ranchi and met Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Sitaram Yechury, D Raja, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Naveen Patnaik, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and Hemant Soren during his visits.
Barring Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, all the leaders have showed willingness towards forming an opposition front against the BJP in 2024 General election.
