Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is coming to Kolkata this afternoon to meet Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with the aim of uniting opposition forces ahead of Lok Sabha Elections 2024. According to sources, Nitish Kumar will arrive in Kolkata by a special plane in the afternoon and meet Mamata Banerjee. Under this programme, Nitish will leave for Lucknow on Monday after staying in Kolkata for three-four hours and then meet Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. Earlier in the same way, KCR and Stalin have also tried to unite the opposition.

Seat for Non-Congress Alliance?

According to a senior Trinamool Congress leader, the meeting will discuss opposition unity in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Notably, 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, including an hour-and-a-half or two-hour meeting with his Bengal counterpart. Nitish Kumar was earlier 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 coming on Monday itself.

Bihar CM will also meet Akhilesh

It is also reported that Nitish Kumar will go straight to Lucknow to meet Akhilesh Yadav after his meeting with Mamata. Last month, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav met Mamata in Kolkata's Kalighat. In the meeting, the two leaders agreed to distance themselves from the Congress and focus on the unity of regional parties against the BJP in the 2024 elections.

Mamata is also trying to unite the opposition

Soon after meeting Akhilesh, Mamata traveled to Odisha where she met Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik. After this former Chief Minister of Karnataka and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy came to Kolkata and met Mamata. After this, Mamata had a phone conversation with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin last week.

Nitish has also held a meeting with Congress leaders

The exact reason for Bihar CM's meeting with Mamata Banerjee and Akhilesh Yadav has not been revealed, though so far it is being seen as an attempt to unite the opposition without the Congress. However, Nitish Kumar recently went to Delhi along with Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav and held a closed-door meeting with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and MP Rahul Gandhi. In such a situation, a lot is expected to be clear from today's meeting of Nitish Kumar about what policy will be made for the Lok Sabha elections to be held next year.