Top Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi met Bihar’s ruling alliance leaders JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav in an attempt to forge unity among opposition leaders to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Rahul Gandhi described the initiative as "historic" while Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said they will make all efforts to unite more and more parties in the country against the BJP despite differences among regional parties.
Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav later met Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who lauded Kumar's efforts to bring together opposition parties and pledged his support.
Rahul Gandhi said they will work on the ideology and will work on taking all parties together.
"We held a historic meeting here. A lot of issues were discussed and we decided that we will unite all parties and fight the upcoming polls in a united manner. We have made this decision and all of us will work for this," Gandhi told reporters while lauding the efforts of Kumar, Yadav and others sitting along with him.
"In this battle of ideology, a historic step has been taken today towards the unity of the opposition. Standing together, we will fight together - for India," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi and shared his picture with other leaders.
Kharge said the opposition would unite to fight all upcoming elections, including assembly elections this year and the Lok Sabha polls next year and will also protect the Constitution.
The JDU tweeted in Hindi, saying, "Nitish ji will prove to be the architect of opposition unity in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections."
Asked how many opposition parties will come together, Gandhi said, "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.
Bihar chief minister, who broke the alliance with the BJP in August last year, said, "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," he said.
The leaders had lunch at Kharge's residence, where JDU president Lalan Singh, Bihar Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh, Congress leader Salman Khurshid and RJD leader Manoj Jha were also present.
According to sources, Kharge would be meeting top leaders of various Opposition parties in the coming few days. Kharge has spoken to opposition leaders including M K Stalin and Uddhav Thackeray recently.
Kumar too is expected to meet a slew of opposition leaders during his stay in the national capital.
Tejashwi Yadav appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Delhi on Tuesday for questioning in a money laundering case linked to the alleged land-for-jobs scam.
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Meanwhile, Union minister and senior BJP leader Anurag Thakur alleged that the alliance of the parties "drowned in the quagmire of corruption is actually a thugbandhan" (alliance of corrupt).
"These gimmicks will not hide their corruption. The public is denying them again and again. In 2014 and 2019, they formed a 'thugbandhan' here, but the result was the same, as people have rejected corrupt parties and formed the government with absolute majority twice under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi," he said.
(Edited by : Pradeep John)
