Nitish Kumar

Trinamool Congress insiders said that Nitish Kumar is supposed to come to Kolkata on Tuesday morning and there is a high possibility of his meeting with Mamata Banerjee at the latter's Kalighat residence in South Kolkata on the same evening. A member of the West Bengal cabinet said that the meeting will harp.

However, Nitish Kumar clarified that he is not a Prime Ministerial candidate of the opposition parties but he might play the role of UPA convener by following in the footsteps of his senior leader late George Fernandes. George Fernandes played a major role in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) formation in 1998. At that time the Congress was ruling at the Centre and the opposition parties were scattered.

"You know what they (BJP leaders) are doing to the opposition leaders. Everyone is doing great work for the development of their respective states. Arvind Kejriwal has done so many good things for Delhi and people have great respect for him. Still they are targeting him. When the time comes, they will be given appropriate answers," Nitish Kumar said.

Addressing a gathering of JD-U workers at the party headquarters here, Nitish Kumar said that such slogans would derail the work he is doing at the moment. "I request all of you with folded hands to avoid chanting my name as the Prime Minister of the country. I am working on uniting the opposition parties in the country to fight against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

"Uniting the opposition parties is the only goal for me and I am working on it. Don't worry, you will get information slowly. Wait for sometime," he told media persons at Patna airport. "As you know, I went to Delhi for three days and met the leaders of opposition parties. We sat together yesterday (Wednesday) and discussed with them. Uniting the opposition parties is the only goal and every leader will make efforts on it. They have given statements about it," he said.

Manjhi met Amit Shah to demand Bharat Ratna for mountain man Dashrath Manjhi."There is no chance of going into the NDA. I have taken an oath to stay with Nitish Kumar till the last breath. Nitish Kumar has all the ability of a Prime Minister and he is making honest efforts to unite the opposition parties of the country. "How could we go with the BJP which has only one ideology - to destroy smaller parties of the country? We have a small party in Bihar and it is not possible to go with them," Manjhi said.

"The Nitish formula for 2024 for opposition unity is One Seat One Candidate (OSOC). It has come into effect in the country. The discussions with all opposition parties are completed now and its result will be visible soon," senior JD-U leader K.C. Tyagi said on Thursday. "Some issues coming into the media about what happened to Mamata Benerjee, Arvind Kejriwal and K Chandrashekhar Rao, and these will be addressed soon.

He is likely to meet Sonia Gandhi too, and sources say that Rahul Gandhi will be present in the meeting as well. The meeting comes after Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge took the first step to unite the opposition parties ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha election. Kharge on has made calls to leaders of various like-minded opposition parties including M. K. Stalin, Nitish Kumar and Uddhav Thackeray.

The senior BJP leader claimed that Nitish Kumar is "mocking the job aspirants through the fresh guidelines". As per the new guidelines, the candidates who have passed CTET and BTET should have to appear in another examination conducted by Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) and they would get jobs only after passing it.

He said that they (Nitish, Tejashwi) are busy in fancy dress competition while police are taking action against Muslim youths in riots case. Referring to communal violence in Sasaram and Biharsharif, Owaisi claimed that Nitish Kumar government is taking one sided action against youths of Muslim community and arresting them.