Nitish Kumar says 17 opposition parties would contest the 2024 elections together, and the next meeting will be in Shimla

The opposition parties in Bihar’s Patna resolved to run against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 elections as a united front.

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections would be contested jointly by 17 parties, according to Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar, who made the announcement at a news conference after the meeting, according to PTI. The next meeting will take place in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.

“Those in control at the Centre are against national interest, and we have united for that reason…Nitish was reported by PTI as stating, “Future plan of action should be sketched out shortly; next conference of opposition parties to be convened in Shimla.

Top opposition figures including Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, Congressman Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and DMK leader and Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin were present at the meeting, which was presided over by Nitish. He termed the discussions as “positive” and a “good meeting”.

Kharge said at the news conference that the 17 parties’ shared agenda will be formalised at the next meeting.

Political heavy hitters from all across the nation converged in Patna. Omar Abdullah, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, came early on the day, while several other politicians, including Mehbooba Mufti, Mamata, Kejriwal, Bhagwant Mann, and Stalin, have been camped out in the city since Thursday.

Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Hemant Soren of Jharkhand, Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, Uddhav Thackeray of Maharashtra, and Sharad Pawar of the NCP are among the other leaders present at the meeting. An earlier report said that Pawar will provide the Opposition coalition a uniform minimum plan.

On the other hand, BJP President J P Nadda said that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s political opponents were now embracing her grandson Rahul Gandhi after being imprisoned by her during the Emergency. He said that at that time, Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, spent 20 months in prison while RJD leader Lalu Prasad was imprisoned for 22 months.

Top 10 recent events discussed during opposition meeting in Patna

1. The opposition gathering in Patna has been branded a “war cry” against the “fascist and autocratic regime” of the BJP by Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK leader MK Stalin. He gushed about how happy he was to be “in the land that has given us……Buddha, Karpoori Thakur and BP Mandal”

Stalin continued, using the hashtag #UnitingIndia2024 in his tweet. “No surprises that the war cry of a united opposition is from here, the land of social justice, to end this fascist, autocratic regime and allow the rebirth of a secular, democratic India,” he said.

2. The gathering of the opposition camp in Patna is attended by a total of 14 parties. Despite the fact that its leaders want to defeat the BJP in the general elections of 2024, these parties together have less than 200 seats in the Lok Sabha, according to PTI. Congress, the biggest party, with 54 MPs in the Lok Sabha.

Even though these parties did badly in the 2019 Lok Sabha, they see their recent strong showings in the assembly elections and the Bharat Jodo Yatra results as positive signs.

The Congress is anticipating a big return after its recent victories in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka and the reaction to Rahul Gandhi’s “Bharat Jodo Yatra.” Even though they both did well in the Bihar assembly elections that were conducted a year later, two of the parties present—the RJD and CPI(ML) Liberation—had failed to gain a single seat in the most recent Lok Sabha elections. They intend to do well in the legislative elections as well with their coalition firmly in place, according to PTI.

3. Nitish Kumar is in charge of the gathering of the opposition parties. Kharge and Lalu Prasad Yadav, leader of the RJD, are on each side of him.

4. In the morning, Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, met with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary in charge of organisation KC Venugopal, and party leader Rahul Gandhi at the airport. Nitish Kumar is hosting the meeting alongside his deputy and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav.

5. Union Home Minister Amit Shah called the gathering a “photo session” and poked fun at it.

“They (the opposition) want to take on the NDA and PM Modi. I want to inform them that PM Modi would take office as prime minister in 2024 after winning more than 300 seats,” he remarked.

6. The Opposition’s divisions came to light a day before the important discussions, with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) sources claiming that the party would leave the conference if the Congress does not pledge its opposition to the Centre’s law on the control of administrative services in Delhi. Before departing for Patna on Friday morning, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge stated his party will make a decision before the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

“It is not outside that it is proposed or opposed; it is inside of Parliament. Before the start of the legislative session, all parties agree on the subjects they will collaborate on. Even their leaders attend our all-party meetings because they are aware of this. I’m not sure why there’s been so much coverage of it outside, Kharge added.

7. Several opposition figures, including Tejashwi Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, Sitaram Yechury, K Chandrashekhar Rao, and others, have so far offered their support to Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, in his struggle against the decree from the Centre. The Congress, the AAP’s main adversary in Delhi, Punjab, and other states, has so far avoided saying outright whether it would back the party or not when the BJP-led Centre brought the decree before Parliament for a vote.

8. The most recent and prominent absence is Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party, who, although not being invited, made fun of all parties that would be present at the conference. In Patna, she said, “Dil miley na miley, haath milatey rahiye”—shaking hands is more important than connecting hearts.

The former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh sent a series of tweets in Hindi in which he stated: “It is clear from the condition of Bahujans in the country that parties like the BJP and Congress are not capable of implementing the humanistic, egalitarian Constitution framed by B R Ambedkar.”

Since Mayawati, the leader of the BSP, was not invited and Jayant Chaudhary, the leader of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, is planning to miss the meeting because of a family event, the Samajwadi Party is the only party from Uttar Pradesh that will be there.

9. The Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), led by Jagan Mohan Reddy, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), under Chandrababu Naidu, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), under Naveen Patnaik, the Janata Dal (Secular) (JD(S)), and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), under K Chandrashekar Rao.

According to BRS working president KT Rama Rao, the party does not believe in building a coalition to oppose one person (Modi), and they also think third and fourth fronts are ineffective since each state has a distinct political climate. Elections in Telangana are expected to take place in November of this year, with Congress serving as BRS’ major opponent.

10. Sources were cited by PTI as adding that a basic framework and path for Opposition unity will likely be discussed, with the controversial issues of seat-sharing and leadership problems being skirted for the time being. In order to increase the number of votes from parties other than the BJP, several participating parties are expected to propose the notion of running common candidates in 400 to 450 seats.

The Manipur unrest and the claimed failure of the Centre there are likely to be mentioned in this backdrop, an opposition leader was cited by PTI as saying. Issues that the Opposition will collectively raise to corner the BJP would be at the top of the agenda.

Banerjee proposed holding a gathering of opposition leaders in Patna after recalling Jayaprakash Narayan at a meeting with Nitish Kumar in Kolkata in April. For the last several months, Kumar has worked relentlessly to fortify the unity of the opposition by interacting with national and regional party leaders. In order to unify all non-BJP votes for one candidate, she had also suggested that the opposition parties assist the party wherever it is strong, like as by backing the SP-RLD in UP and the TMC in West Bengal.