West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar on Monday stressed that the opposition parties need to shed their egos to unite against the BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The remarks came after Banerjee met Nitish Kumar and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav at the state secretariat of Nabanna in the afternoon. After the meeting, the chief ministers addressed the media and stressed for an opposition unity which has to be achieved by shedding individual egos.

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“We are always together. The BJP has become the hero and there is a need to convert them into zero. There is no question of personal ego, Nitish-ji has already started holding talks with the different opposition parties. I am also holding similar discussions with others. In the coming days we will move together,” Banerjee said. Echoing her, Nitish Kumar said that all the anti-BJP opposition parties will have to united before the 2024 elections.

“Let us all sit together and discuss how to move ahead in the coming days. We had an extremely fruitful discussion and we have agreed that all will have to get united and move together,” he said.

However, from the brief media interaction, it was not clear whether the two chief ministers agreed on including Congress in the bigger united opposition alliance. While the Trinamul Congress has already made it clear that the Congress does not fit in their formula of an opposition alliance, Nitish Kumar has been actively interacting with the top party leaders, including national president Mallikarjun Kharge.

“Nothing is being done for the development of the country. The party in power in the Centre is only interested their individual advertisement. They are changing glorious history of our freedom struggle,” Mr Kumar said. Reacting to the comments made by Mamata Banerjee, Congress leader Kaustav Bagchi said that the Trinamul Congress leadership should justify its credibility in taking a hardcore anti-BJP stand.

“Till date the chief minister has not uttered a single word against the RSS. Actually, Congress leadership is worried about any Trojan horse in its concept of united opposition,” Bagchi said.

A similar opinion was expressed by senior CPM leader and the former Lok Sabha member Samik Lahiri. “When it comes to a united move within Parliament on any issue, including voting, Trinamul Congress MPs go missing. In such a situation, questions are bound to be raised about the chief minister’s seriousness about a united opposition movement against the BJP,” he said.