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During a press conference, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav slammed the BJP government at the Centre for rising poverty and unemployment in the country.
Earlier in the day, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the RJD supremo met Congress President Sonia Gandhi at her residence in a bid to unify opposition parties before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. He further added, "We need to remove the BJP and have to save the country. For that, we all have to come together in a way we removed BJP in Bihar. We have had talks with Sonia Gandhi. She asked us to meet again after 10-12 days once the Congress party gets a new president". When asked about the 2024 polls, Nitish Kumar said, "If all the parties form a coalition overpowering, defeating the Modi government in the elections won't be a difficult job and we are in continuous talks for the coalition by 2024 polls." As per RJD sources, the meeting is important not only to strengthen the Opposition for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2024 but also for various reasons as the party chief will seek assurance from Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi in the 'unity of the opposition to agree for compromises'. Lalu and JDU chief Nitish Kumar will further ask Gandhi for the right to approach the Opposition camp by meeting the leaders of regional parties who are politically distant from Congress to join the alliance. As per the sources, JDU and RJD chiefs are likely to approach Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Telangana, Yuvajana Sramika Rythu (YSR) Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana, Left in Kerala, Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP), Odisha's Biju Janata Dal (BJD), and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference (NC) in Jammu and Kashmir. Interestingly, Congress will have to adopt compromising nature if Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar succeed in uniting these Opposition parties. The campaign to unify the Opposition will speed up manifold if today's meeting of Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar with Sonia Gandhi succeeds. It is pertinent to mention that it will be the first meeting between the three parties in more than five years. Both the leaders arrived in Delhi to attend a rally to be held in Fatehabad district in Haryana on the birth anniversary of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) founder late Devi Lal with INLD leader OP Chautala. Taking a dig at the rally held in Fatehabad Sushil Modi told ANI, "The entire rally was a big flop as only Nitish Kumar was present. The claims that he had made of forming a strong alliance been crushed as no other party member was present during the rally". (ANI)
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