Opposition’s June 12 meet deferred to ensure Kharge, Rahul Gandhi attendance; likely on June 23

Sources said the June 12 schedule was also not convenient for the DMK as well as the CPI(M). With the JD(U) unilaterally announcing the date, the Congress had indicated that Kharge may not attend the meeting and could send instead one of the party’s Chief Ministers to the Patna meet.

Rahul, sources said, will return to India on June 18. A meeting of the anti-BJP parties to chalk out the strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections without the top Congress leadership in attendance would have been bad optics.

Sources said the JD(U) has now conveyed to the Opposition leaders that the conclave can now be held after June 20, preferably on June 23.

Earlier, the Congress made it clear that the party will participate in the June 12 meeting but was yet to decide the level of its representation.

Although the Congress still believes that it should be “rightfully” at the centre of the Opposition unity project given its status as the largest among the non-BJP parties, the party had let Bihar CM and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar do the groundwork for the meeting given that some of the Opposition parties are not keen to accept the primacy of the grand old party.

Many of the Opposition parties are keen that they come together and field one joint candidate against the BJP in majority of the Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 polls. But the exercise is fraught with challenges.

In fact, Rahul recently admitted that the discussions regarding Opposition unity would be a “complicated” affair. “The discussions are complicated because there are spaces where we are also competing with the Opposition. So a little bit of give and take is required, but I am confident that it will happen,” he said during one of his events in the US.