Nitish, Tejashwi and Lalu to leave for B’luru for Oppn unity meet

The CM will hold the weekly Janata Durbar in the first half of Monday and leave for Bengaluru in the afternoon, said a leader

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad among other senior state leaders will be attending the second opposition meeting in Bengaluru, Karnataka, to chalk out a joint strategy to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party unitedly in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections leaders familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Poster of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav is put up on the eve of the Opposition meeting, in Bengaluru on Sunday. (ANI)

Apart from the above mentioned leaders, JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh and water resources department minister Sanjay Kumar Jha will also be participating in the opposition meeting to be held on July 17 and 18, said one of the leaders on anonymity.

The CM will hold the weekly Janata Durbar in the first half of Monday and leave for Bengaluru in the afternoon along with top Grand Alliance leaders, said the leader quoted above.

Leaders of 24 parties including national and regional parties, have been invited for the meeting, said the leader.

Earlier on June 23, chief minister Nitish Kumar had hosted the first mega meeting of 15 opposition parties in Patna, where six chief ministers and around 25 top leaders opposed to the BJP participated. It was proposed then the next opposition meeting would be held at Shimla in July. However, on June 29, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar announced the second meeting would be held in Bengaluru, citing heavy rains in Himachal Pradesh as the reason for shift in the venue.

At the meeting, a complement of Opposition heavyweights, including Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav among others brainstormed on a roadmap for an anti-BJP front in time for the next year’s Lok Sabha elections.