Mumbai: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who had hosted the Opposition parties’ meeting in Patna a week ago, had announced that the leaders will next meet in Shimla on July 10-12.
However, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said on Thursday that the next meeting of Opposition parties will be held at Bengaluru on July 13 and 14.
“PM Modi has become restless after opposition parties’ meet in Patna,” said Pawar, referring to the coming together of leaders from 15 parties on June 23.
Congress and the other regional parties have agreed to fight the BJP together in next year’s Lok Sabha elections as they aim to end Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 10-year reign.
The main agenda for the second ‘conclave’ will be to prepare a common agenda for moving ahead together despite some of the parties having major differences at the state level.
The Patna meeting was attended by Pawar, Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, Pawar, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, three chief ministers — Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi) and Bhagwant Mann (Punjab) – and others.
The two Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders, however, left without attending the press conference which followed the four-hour-long meeting to protest against Congress for not opposing the Central government’s ‘black Ordinance’.
