'Couldn't Have A Word With KCR': Bihar Deputy CM Says 'Main Leaders' Of 15 Parties To Attend Oppn Meet

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav mentioned that from every party, not just a representative but a main leader will attend the meeting organised by CM Nitish Kumar in Patna on June 23.

File photo of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday said that almost 15 parties will attend the upcoming opposition meeting in Patna, organised by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, while he was not able to establish communication with Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao over the same. He mentioned that from every party, not just a representative but a main leader will attend the meeting. The much-vaunted meeting of anti-BJP parties will take place on June 23.

When asked if Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao, also known as KCR, will attend the meeting, Tejashwi Yadav said: "Couldn't have a word with him but rest all leaders are coming."

"Almost 15 parties will be attending the meet... from every party, the main leader is coming not just a representative," he added.

He made the statement while earlier remarking that the BJP is "scared" for the 2024 Lok Sabha election and they don't know what to do. "They recently lost in Karnataka, before that they lost in Himachal Pradesh, next they will be defeated in Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, and Jharkhand. Don't worry."

Meanwhile, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar also spoke about the meeting on June 23. "He called me up and extended an invitation. He has invited the opposition leaders of the country. I will go there. He has extended the invitation keeping in mind the necessity to work together on a national issue and it is our duty to give him our support," he told news agency ANI.

Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal To Participate In Oppn Meeting

In a press conference on Wednesday, RJD's Tejashwi Yadav said that opposition leaders including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Left leaders, have agreed to sit together and chalk out a strategy for next year's Lok Sabha polls

 Others who have agreed to attend the meeting are Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) group president Uddhav Thackeray, JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh 'Lalan' said, as per news agency PTI.

The CPI, the CPI(M) and the CPI(ML) Liberation will be represented by their respective general secretaries D Raja, Sitaram Yechury, and Dipankar, Lalan added.   

The longest-serving Chief Minister of Bihar, who is now in his 70s, has held several rounds of talks with all the opposition leaders to discuss his plans, while being at pains to insist that he had no personal ambitions. The idea of such a meeting in Patna was floated by Mamata Banerjee, who heads the Trinamool Congress, when Kumar and Yadav called on her at Kolkata in April. Banerjee had evoked the memory of Jayprakash Narayan's fight against the Indira Gandhi regime before and during Emergency to underscore Bihar should once again take the lead.