Kharge, Rahul Gandhi to attend June 23 meet in Patna, Cong leaders plan grand welcome to party top brasses

PATNA: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party senior Rahul Gandhi are all set to attend the opposition parties’ meeting, convened by chief minister Nitish Kumar in Patna on June 23, said a leader of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) familiar with the matter.

“The state party leaders and workers are gearing up to accord a grand welcome to Kharge ji and Rahul ji on their arrival here,” said Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan, who is also a secretary in the All India Congress Committee (AICC).

Khan said that party workers were enthusiastic and are preparing to receive them at the historic party office. “We are requesting them to spare some time and visit Sadaquat Ashram,” he added.

The meeting is being watched keenly by the rival parties, as the earlier scheduled meeting on June 12 had to be cancelled owing to the unavailability of senior Congress leaders. Many leaders in the rival camp had ridiculed Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar’s bid to mobilise and bring together all the opposition parties under a united front to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

“The opposition’s unity is firm and final. All major parties have already given their consent for a larger coalition with determination to solicit people’s support to unseat the BJP-led dispensation from power owing to its anti-people policies. There could be some issues with the distribution of seats, which would be sorted out in due course,” said a senior AICC leader.

JD(U) president Lalan Singh also said that senior Congress leaders, Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, have given their consent to be part of the first crucial meeting in Patna. Regarding the meeting, the JD(U) chief said that the CM, who convened the meeting, would decide on the venue.

Meanwhile, suspense prevailed over the participation of Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) leader and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi in the meeting. Soon after meeting CM Kumar, Manjhi said he was not yet invited in the meeting. However, he later played down the issue, saying that his party was with Kumar. Manjhi had staked a claim on five LS seats to contest. Some JD(U) leaders said that Manjhi had dented his credibility after meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah last month.

Congress leaders, meanwhile, said that the June 23 meeting would lay down the broad outline for the opposition’s strategy to take on the BJP-led coalition across the country in the 2024 polls. “As per the understanding, regional parties with mass support would be given majority share in the seat allocation,” said a senior BPCC leader, while parrying a query regarding working president of Jharkhand Congress Bandhu Tirkey’s claim on nine out of 14 Lok Sabha seats for the party in the state.

A senior JD(U) leader said that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Left leaders have agreed to sit together and chalk out a strategy for next year’s Lok Sabha polls. Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin, Jharkhand CM and JMM leader Hemant Soren, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, and Shiv Sena (UBT) group president Uddhav Thackeray are among other key personalities likely to attend the meeting, besides RJD chief Lalu Prasad.