Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, June 20
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s effort for a strong united opposition against the BJP received a jolt as three prominent would not be attending the mega meet in Patna.
The Patna meet scheduled for June 23 had been the brainchild of Kumar. He had invited all political parties and had personally visited many states to invited the non-BJP Chief Ministers.
Sources said Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy and Bahujan Samaj Party Chief Ms Mayawati would not be attending the meeting. However, all the top leaders including four Chief Ministers would reach Patna on June 22 evening as the first session of the event starts on June 23 morning.
According to official sources here, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar cancelled his trip to Chennai today to monitor preparations for the grand event of opposition leaders being held here first time after 49 years of the Jayaprakash Narayan led meeting in 1974. Nitish sent his deputy Tejaswhi Prasad Yadav to attend the opening of Karunanidhi memorial near Madurai today.
According to official sources here, the day -long session spread in two sittings at Samvad-CM secretariat complex would not discuss the name of the Prime Minister candidate against Narendra Modi, but would finalise a common minimum programme of the opposition against BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. There would not be one to one candidate to fight against the BJP during the preliminary rounds on Friday meeting.
The Chief Ministers consented to attend the June 23 conclave include Ms Mamta Banerjee, Hemant Soren, M K Stalin, Arwind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann.
AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi would first address the meeting of the Congress leaders at PCC headquarters-Sadaquat Ashram before going to the opposition meet.
From Maharashtra, two former Chief Ministers Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray, former Chief Ministers of from Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdualla of National Conference and Mehbooba Mufti of PDP are coming for the meet. From Lucknow, Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav is coming.
NItish Kumar did not invite the AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi.
From RJD, its National President Lalu Prasad and his son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav have been invited. Left parties leaders D Raja (CPI), Sitaram Yechuri (CPM) and Deepankar Bhattacharya (CPI-ML) are attending the grand event.
The guests would be served Bihar’s favourite dish-Litti and Chokha during the lunch at CM secretariat near Raj Bhawan.
