From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday took off for second unity mission, along with his deputy CM and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejaswi Yadav, to speak to Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh chief Akhilesh Yadav.
The most cruicial meeting is, however, billed for Tuesday when Nitish meets his Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee to rope in her Trinamul Congess (TMC) for the Opposition unity in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge is likely to meet her either at her Kalighat residence in South Kolkata or at the state secretariat Nabanna at about 2 pm.
The issued listed for the talks include the opposition unity as well as the Central discrimination against the non-BJP states and misuse of the federal agencies.
Mamata is, however, non-committed to the Congress role in the entire scheme of things even while earlier she had spoken to her Odisha and Tamil Nadu counterpart Naveen Patnaik and M K Stalin besides speaking to former Karnataka and UP CM H D Kumaraswami and Akhilesh Yadav.
Whenever asked earlier, she had either ducked the poser or has insisted on a post-poll decision about who should lead the opposition, stressing that “whoever is strongr in whichever place should be allowed to contest to mak it to onee-to-one fight and matter be decided after the polls.”
Since the Congress continues to be the sedond largest party in Bengal and the biggest opposition force with its presence in almost all the constituencies across the country, critics of Mammata have refused to her contention that the viable opposition is possible on her formula.
This even as her senior leaders like Sudip Bandopadhyay, Kunal Ghosh and Saugato Roy have often said Mamata herself was a formidable cndidate to ltead the coalition govrenment.
Nitish Kumar comes to meet her at a time when on account of th alienation faced by the TMC, it has lost minority community dominated Assembly by elections as it has been trounced either by left or the BJP.
She continues to be the most vocal against the Modi government, besides Rahul Gandhi. “You can put my family members and me in jail, but refused to surrender before it.” as she said she will continue to speak against the misue of ED and CBI.”
