Patna: Ahead of the meeting of like-minded opposition parties in Bengaluru, Bihar Minister and senior JD-U leader Vijay Kumar Chaudhary on Sunday claimed more parties will take part in the second installment.
Addressing media persons here, Chaudhary said: “Due to the grand success of the opposition unity meeting of Patna, we are expecting more political parties to assemble in Bengaluru for the meeting. After opposition unity, the public sentiment is against the BJP in the country.
“All opposition parties have already said that they will contest the election unitedly in 2024. Hence, picking a leader would not be a tough affair… Like Patna, the Bengaluru meeting will also turn out to be a great success for us.”
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, JD-U President Lalan Singh, Sanjay Jha, Manoj Jha and other leaders of Bihar will go to the Karnataka capital for the meeting slated for July 17 and 18.
Meanwhile, the BJP is also reaching out to various parties to counter the opposition unity meeting. It will hold its meeting in Delhi on the evening of July 18. From Bihar, Chirag Paswan, Pasupati Kumar Paras, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Mukesh Sahani, and Upendra Kushwaha are expected to participate.
Interestingly, most of them are fighting each other. Chirag Paswan has a conflict with his uncle, while Sahani is demanding the same number of seats as Chirag Paswan – 6 Lok Sabha seats and 1 Rajya Sabha seat, while Manjhi had left the Mahagatbandhan on the issues of claiming 5 Lok Sabha seats.
Taking a dig at the BJP, senior JD-U leader K.C. Tyagi said: “They (the BJP) are also holding a meeting to counter us but majority of the political parties are those which were part of Mahagathbandhan in the past. The BJP is trying to form an NDA but the majority of them are small parties have they have so many conflicts among them.”
(IANS)
