The meeting was expected to start around 11.30am at the official residence of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who has spearheaded the unity efforts
Around half-a-dozen chief ministers and top leaders of multiple parties have gathered in Patna for the meeting of non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parties on Friday as part of efforts to unite them ahead of the 2024 national polls.
The meeting was expected to start around 11.30am at the official residence of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who has spearheaded the unity efforts.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, her Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Punjab counterparts M K Stalin, Arvind Kejriwal, and Bhagwant Maan, as well as People’s Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti, arrived in Patna on Thursday for the meeting.
Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar were scheduled to be in Patna on Friday morning.
Vijay Kumar Choudhary, a leader of Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) and Bihar minister, said the meeting will go down in history. “...so many opposition leaders on one platform...reflects how there is an understanding among anti-BJP forces that a combined opposition front would be key to oust [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi from power and defeat the BJP in next general polls.”
People aware of the matter said the agenda of the meeting will be centered around discussing the modalities of forging the anti-BJP front and giving the proposed coalition of over 15 parties some shape for talks on seat sharing. Frictions between regional parties with Congress in some states and leadership could also be discussed.
Choudhary said there will be pre-lunch and post-lunch sessions and broad issues as to why the front is essential and how it would function would be discussed.
There is speculation that Kumar may be the convenor of the new front, which would an extension of Bihar’s ruling coalition or mahagatbandhan of six parties including JD(U), Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and Left parties.
JD(U) chief spokesperson K C Tyagi said the mahagatbandhan experiment in Bihar has been working smoothly for nine months. He called it a ready template for the national front to emulate. “ We have put forth the ‘one against one’ formula of putting single opposition candidates against BJP nominees. This is a formula Kumar has pitched and it has the potential of giving big results,” said Tyagi.he meeting of 18 parties is among the biggest of the kind in recent years and comes around nine months before the next general elections. HT on Friday reported the conversation is unlikely to be dominated by the contour or regional arrangements and alignments or a so-called common minimum programme.
The Union government’s ordinance on the control of bureaucrats in Delhi was likely to cast a long shadow over proceedings.
HT reported Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who wants unity against the ordinance, may object if the Congress remains non-committal and could short-circuit the prospect of unity even before it emerges.
Many parties have supported Kejriwal. But Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s arch rival in Delhi and Punjab, has remained non-committal. Kejriwal asked for an appointment but Kharge and Gandhi have not met him. The Congress is unlikely to support Kejriwal under pressure.
Ahead of the meeting, issues of prime ministerial face, the frictions between AAP and Congress, and the reservations of Trinamool Congress over the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-Congress pact in Bengal have come to the fore.
Congress leader Tariq Anwar said they have led coalition governments and hence know the way to deal with such minor irritants
JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh said a prime ministerial face will be decided only after the results of the 2024 polls come. “Kumar is not a face,” said Singh.
BJP leader Ravi Shankar dismissed the meeting as a futile exercise saying there is no vacancy for the country’s top elected post as Narendra Modi will become the Prime Minister for a third time. “How will the opposition achieve unity when they have no prime ministerial face and there are so many claimants for the top post.”
The meeting was earlier scheduled for June 12 but it was cancelled to ensure that the parties involved sorted out their differences and were willing to make sacrifices and adjustments. No breakthrough was likely at the meeting.
Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha quit Bihar’s ruling alliance days before the meeting. Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who has been one of the key interlocutors for the unity, has also decided against attending the meeting.
