Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, April 13
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday revived his plan to unite opposition parties against the BJP for 2024 Lok Sabha elections and to “limit BJP within 100 seats”.
On Thursday, the Left leaders called on Kumar at his Kamraj Road residence in the national capital. The leaders included D Raja of Communist Party of India (CPI) and Sitaram Yechury of Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Kumar, who would be camping in the national capital for four days to talks to opposition leaders, on Wednesday visited the residence of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and held a meeting with the former Congress President Rahul Gandhi. He was joined by his deputy and RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav. Kumar had met Lalu last night.
Late Wednesday evening, Nitish swung into action to unite the opposition parties and called on AAP President and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Tejashwi Prasad Yadav was also with him.
The three parties’ meeting concluded on a positive note as Kharge called its historic. Nitish said, “finally we have agreed on opposition unity”. Rahul Gandhi commented that the move was the beginning of a process toward unity of like-minded parties.
Nitish announced they would meet again soon. Next time, there would be a larger gathering; more parties would be present, he added. The Bihar Chief Minister outlined the road map to unity and said they would fight the next elections unitedly.
In September last year, he had met many top opposition leaders including D Raja, Sitaram Yechury, Akhilesh Yadav, Sonia Gandhi and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, who had come to meet him at Patna.
Nitish had asked the Congress with pan-India presence to take the lead on talks that were suspended due to the Bharat Jodo yatra of Rahul Gandhi. The former union minister Salman Khurshid during his Patna visit recently had suggested Nitish to take initiative for opposition unity.
On Saturday, Kharge had telephoned Nitish and invited him to resume talks on opposition unity. When asked whether any decision to appoint a convenor of UPA was taken in the meeting, Nitish denied.
RJD has suggested the Congress should confront the BJP in the states where it was powerful but allow smaller regional parties in other states to deal with the BJP by not dividing votes.
JDU was represented by the National President Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Irrigation Minister Sanjay Kumar Jha, RJD by Tejashwi, Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha, Congress by Kharge, Salman Khurshid and Bihar Congress President Akhilesh Singh.
