New Delhi: With a view to unite opposition parties before the 2024 Lok Sabha election,Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will visit Kolkata to meet his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee. According to the sources Nitish Kumar will reach Kolkata in the afternoon by a special flight and meet Mamata banerjee. As per the planning, after staying for 3 – 4 hours in Kolkata he will leave for Lucknow today itself. Kumar is scheduled to meet Samajwadi Party (SP) chief and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on Monday. Earlier, KCR and Stalin also have made efforts to unite the opposition forces.
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A meeting for a non-Congress alliance?
According to a senior Trinamool Congress leader, in the meeting they will discuss about opposition unity in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It may be noted here that in the last few months, Mamata Banerjee has held meetings with many non-BJP and non-Congress leaders regarding opposition unity. Nitish is expected to stay in Kolkata for three to four hours. Nitish Kumar was first scheduled to reach Kolkata on Tuesday morning and meet Mamata at her Kalighat residence in south Kolkata the same evening. However, now the program has been changed and Nitish is going Kolkata on Monday only.
Bihar CM Will also meet Akhilesh
According to the reports after a meeting with Mamata, Nitish Kumar will go directly to Lucknow to meet Akhilesh Yadav. Last month, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav met Mamata at Kalighat in Kolkata. In the meeting, two leaders agreed to distance themselves from the Congress and focus on uniting regional parties against the BJP in the 2024 elections.
Mamta’s efforts to unite opposition
Following a meeting with Akhilesh, Mamata traveled to Odisha, where she met Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik. Thereafter, Karnataka former Chief Minister and leader of Janata Dal (Secular) HD Kumaraswamy visited Kolkata and held a meeting with Mamata Banerjee. Mamata had also a telephonic conversation with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin last week.
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