Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, hosted a large gathering of the opposition on Friday in Patna, where 15 parties agreed on the need to work together to win the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. They also decided to continue their discussions at a second gathering in Shimla, which is the capital of the Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh, in July.
However, there was also a conflicting tone heard at the meeting of the top leaders of the opposition parties, many of whom were chief ministers or former chief ministers, as a result of the disagreements between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party concerning the Centre's ordinance on Delhi's services.
The AAP, which was noticeably absent from the post-meeting media briefing, released a statement after the opposition leaders already had informed the media about the discussions, warning that it would be challenging for the AAP to attend upcoming meetings of similar-minded parties if the Congress did not openly announce that it would vote against the ordinance in the Rajya Sabha.
32 leaders from 15 different parties participated in the approximately four-hour meeting, which started at 11:30 am and was held at the chief minister's official residence in Patna's One, Anne Marg. Following the meeting, Kumar said progress had been made in the direction of making a joint opposition campaign for the Lok Sabha elections.
“There is a consensus on fighting elections together. One more meeting will be held, which will be convened by Mallikarjun Kharge ji, where more discussion will be held on the road ahead and there will be a final form to the issue of who will fight where.”
Kharge, the president of the Congress, stated that more discussions will examine matters including the distinctive character of obstacles in various states. “We will work together to mount a joint fight in 2024 to oust the BJP from power,” he added.
Rahul Gandhi, a former president of the Congress, defined the opposition's effort as an ideological struggle with the BJP-RSS. “It is a fight where we are all standing together. Differences will be there. But we have decided to work together, with flexibility...Soon, we will have another meeting where we will have a deeper discussion on taking forward the process of opposition unity,” he said.
The meeting, according to Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, went quite smoothly and three things were agreed upon: the parties are now united, they will campaign together, and it would be incorrect to refer to them as the opposition because they are Indian citizens and patriots.
“I think history has started from here. The BJP wants to change history, but we want to save history,” she said.
She continued by saying that because Bihar had historically served as the launch pad for numerous Jan Andolans, she had requested that Kumar conduct the first gathering of the opposition parties in Patna.
“I told him that many meetings have been held in Delhi, but they have not been fruitful,” she said.
Lalu Prasad, the leader of the RJD, who just recovered enough to attend the meeting and speak to the media, stressed the need for the opposition parties to come together and prevent the split of the opposition vote. He complimented Rahul for his nationwide march as well as for his speech in the Lok Sabha regarding the alleged connections between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tycoon Gautam Adani.
The meeting was further attended by M.K. Stalin, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Sharad Pawar, the leader of the NCP, Hemant Soren, the chief minister of Jharkhand, Tejashwi Yadav, the chief minister of Punjab, Bhagwant Mann, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav, Sitaram Yechury, the leader of the National Conference, Omar Abdullah, the leader of J&K.
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