Opposition meet in Patna: posters of Nitish Kumar, Rahul Gandhi spring up in city

Top leaders of Opposition parties will brainstorm at a meeting here on Friday to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-BJP front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with sources saying that they would look to avoid the prickly leadership question and emphasise common ground.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, party leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her Delhi counterpart and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav, Maharashtra's former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and NCP president Sharad Pawar are among the leaders expected to attend the first high-level opposition meeting.

Sources said the meeting was being seen as a starting point for the Opposition to come together to take on the Narendra Modi-led BJP. Therefore, a basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now, they said.

"This is just the beginning. A meeting of minds is important. The strategy, leadership question and seat sharing are unlikely to be discussed at this stage," a senior Opposition leader said on condition of anonymity.

The leader said issues that the Opposition would jointly raise to corner the BJP would be at the top of the agenda and in this context the Manipur violence and the Centre's alleged failure there are likely to be discussed.