With Mamata, Nitish, Akhilesh, Stalin skipping it, Mallikarjun Kharge postpones INDIA meet

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, December 5

With top opposition leaders set to skip the anti-BJP INDIA alliance meeting scheduled for Wednesday, the Congress has decided to postpone the meeting until a date “convenient to all”.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had called the December 6 meeting of the bloc after the party’s rout in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and MP.

However, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar were set to skip the meeting.

Mamata on Monday said she had no information of any meeting on December 6 and was proceeding for a tour of north Bengal for a week.

The SP said it was yet to decide whether to attend.

Stalin is busy addressing the impact of the cyclone in Tamil Nadu and Nitish Kumar is learnt to have conveyed that he is unwell.

“The Parliamentary Party leaders of India Alliance will meet 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,” Gurdeep Sappal, coordinator in the Congress chief’s office, tweeted.

Allies have been gunning for the Congress since it lost to the BJP. Mamata had said the loss was of the Congress and not of the people. The SP has accused the Congress of arrogantly declining their coalition overtures in MP.

Leaders of the JDU have said that the Congress needs to show a bigger heart if it wants to defeat the BJP and needs to take regional parties along.