BJP ‘scared’ of facing united opposition in 2024: Tejashwi

Patna, Jun 8 (PTI) Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday claimed that the BJP was “scared” of fighting the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in which it may have to face a united opposition.

The RJD leader was responding to questions from journalists about remarks of some BJP leaders who have sought to make light of the conclave of opposition parties to be held in Patna on June 23.

“It is not for the BJP to decide what impact the opposition conclave is going to have. They are scared of facing the Lok Sabha polls. They recently lost assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. They are staring at a series of defeats in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Haryana,” claimed Yadav.

Notably, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U)’s supreme leader, who dumped the BJP last year, has since been advocating a “united opposition” to take on the NDA in the Lok Sabha polls.

Yadav and JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’ had on Wednesday announced that the opposition parties’ conclave will be held on June 23 and leaders as diverse as Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee and Sitaram Yechury have given their assent to attend the meeting.

Yadav said “about 15 parties” will be represented at the June 23 meet. However, when asked about Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) founder and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, he said, “We have not spoken to him so far”.

Notably, Rao had flown down to Patna last year, shortly after Nitish Kumar’s exit from the NDA, and endorsed the latter’s pitch for national unity.

However, there have been apprehensions that the Telangana CM might flinch from joining any formation of which the Congress, currently his principal rival in the state, was a part.

Moreover, of late the BRS has dropped ample hints that instead of becoming a part of a “united opposition” it would try to showcase the “Telangana model”.

Yadav, who spoke to journalists outside the regional passport office here, was accompanied by his wife Rajyashri and three months old daughter Katyayani. He said that he was at the passport office to get documents prepared for the child.

Meanwhile, state-level leaders of the RJD reached the JD(U) office, situated right across the road on the city’s Birchand Patel Marg, understandably to discuss preparations to be made for the June 23 mega event.