Kharge, Rahul hold meeting with Nitish, Tejashwi on Opposition unity

Kharge has spoken to several Opposition leaders recently in an attempt to forging unity among like-minded parties to take on the BJP

Described as a "historic step" to bring together as many parties as possible to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday held a meeting with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and drew a plan to reach out to more leaders and develop a joint vision for the Opposition.

JD(U)'s Kumar and RJD's Tejashwi along with other party leaders drove to the residence of Kharge where they were joined by Rahul, Salman Khurshid and Mukul Wasnik for a detailed discussion on how to move forward on uniting the Opposition parties with varied political interests on a common ideological platform to take on the Narendra Modi regime.

The meeting also saw the attendance of JD(U) National president Rajeev Ranjan Lalan Singh, Bihar Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh and senior RJD MP Manoj K Jha. The leaders also had lunch at Kharge's residence.

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This was the first formal effort ahead of the 2024 polls to bring the parties together with sources saying Kharge would be meeting top leaders of various parties in the next few days to chalk out a plan for a united fight. There will be frequent meetings with the parties on similar lines before finalising a plan.

Kharge, who was urged to take an initiative to unite parties during an Opposition meeting in March end, had last week held telephonic talks with DMK chief MK Stalin, Nitish and Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Uddhav Thackeray on the broad contours of such a grouping and the steps to be taken to bring in more parties into the fold.

After the meeting, Kharge told reporters that a lot of issues were discussed at the "historic meeting" and they have decided to unite all parties and fight the elections "unitedly". He said they have made a decision on this count and all of them would work towards this goal.

Later, he tweeted images of the meeting and said, “will preserve the Constitution and save democracy…reiterated our resolve to raise the voice of the people together and give a new direction to the country."

Nitish said, "the discussions went on for some time. We will make all efforts to unite more and more parties in the country. We will make all efforts, sit together, and work unitedly, this has been decided. After today's discussions we will move forward on that basis. All those who agree will sit together and decide the future course of action."

Asked how many parties would join, he said, "wait till we all sit together and you will see a large number of parties there."

Rahul described the meeting as a "historic step" and said there are questions about how many parties would come together. "This is a process and we will develop the opposition's vision for the country and all those parties that will come together with us, we will together fight the ongoing ideological fight in the country. We will unitedly stand against the attack on institutions, the attack on the country," he said.