INDIA bloc meeting on Dec 17 to chalk out strategy for 2024 LS polls: Lalu

RJD president Lalu Prasad on Tuesday said that top leaders of the INDIA bloc will be meeting on December 17 to chalk out the strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Prasad was posed with queries by journalists, in Buxar district of Bihar, about the meeting that was scheduled on Wednesday but was deferred due to the inability of several top leaders to attend.

"The meeting has now been rescheduled to December 17," said Prasad, a staunch ally of the Congress and also known to be close to the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Speculations have been rife that Prasad's ally Nitish Kumar, the CM of Bihar, was reluctant to attend the meeting on Wednesday. At a recent public meeting, Kumar had lashed out at the Congress for neglecting INDIA bloc during the recent assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

After the Congress' defeat in the crucial polls, many leaders of Kumar's JD(U) have gone on record saying that Congress made a mistake by failing to take on board regional parties and trying to fight the BJP on its own.

Besides, another key INDIA leader Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal Chief Minister who heads the Trinamool Congress, has also said that she would not be able to visit Delhi on December 6 as she had engagements elsewhere.

Senior Congress leader Gurdip Singh Sappal has, meanwhile, announced on X that "a coordination meeting of Parliamentary Party leaders of India Alliance will be at 6 pm on December 6th, 2023 at the residence of Congress President Sh. Mallikarjun Kharge. Thereafter meeting of Party Presidents/ Heads of the India Alliance will be scheduled in third week of December at a date convenient to all".

When Prasad was asked about the Congress' recent poll debacle, he said, "I don't think the party has grown weak. But it may need to work on its leadership in states like Madhya Pradesh.