As the Opposition meeting to chart a map for the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls is underway in Patna, BJP took a jibe at the huddle asking 'Dulha kaun hai'?. Senior leader of the saffron party and former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Bihar CM Nitish Kumar was getting ready for the 'wedding procession' but every 'baaraat' also needs a groom, hinting at Kumar's ambition for the PM post, adding that there are many contenders.
"Nitish Kumar 2024 ke liye baaraat saja rahe hai Patna mai, baaraat me to dulha bhi hota hai, pr is baaraat ka dulha kon hai? (Nitish Kumar is decorating the wedding procession for the 2024 elections in Patna, but who is the groom (PM contender). Everyone is calling themself a PM contender," he said.
Congress leader Pramod Tiwari has hit back and said, "Ravi Shankar dulha ki chinta na kare...Hamara dulha taiyar hai, aap baaraat ke swagat ki tayari kro...This opposition meeting is to unitedly raise voices to save the democracy."
Top leaders of Opposition parties held deliberations here on Friday to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-BJP front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The meeting is being hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD. As the host, Kumar presided over the meeting flanked on either side by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad.
The meeting was being seen as a starting point for the Opposition parties to come together to take on the Narendra Modi-led BJP, the sources said. Therefore, a basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now, they said.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, party leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (TMC), her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab's Bhagwant Mann (AAP), Tamil Nadu's M K Stalin (DMK), Jharkhand's Hemant Soren (JMM), Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav, Maharashtra's former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena-UBT), and NCP president Sharad Pawar are among the leaders attending the first high-level Opposition meeting.
Leaders of the PDP, CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML) and the National Conference are also present at the meeting.
Sharing visuals from the meeting, Kharge, in a tweet in Hindi, said, "Protecting the Constitution and democracy is our sole responsibility. Our meeting to give a new direction to the country." A day before the crucial deliberations, fissures in the Opposition ranks came to the fore with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) sources saying the party will walk out of the meeting if the Congress does not promise its support against the Centre's ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi.
All eyes are on the meeting's agenda and whether the Centre's ordinance on the control of administrative services in the national capital would be a key part of the discussions as the AAP wants.
Keeping cards close to its chest, the Congress has so far kept its stand ambiguous as to whether it would support the AAP or not when the ordinance is put to test in Parliament by the BJP-led Centre.
Asked about the ordinance issue and AAP's ultimatum, Kharge, before leaving for Patna on Friday morning, said his party would take a decision on it before Parliament's Monsoon session and wondered why it was being talked about elsewhere when it was a matter that pertains to Parliament.
"Opposing or proposing it does not happen outside, it happens in Parliament. Before Parliament begins, all parties decide what issues they have to work on together. They know it and even their leaders come to our all-party meetings. I don't know why is there so much publicity about it outside," Kharge said.