Mumbai, May 10 (IANS) Maharashtra Opposition leaders are all set to accord a warm welcome to Janata Dal-U supremo and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and ally Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav here on Thursday.
The duo shall be accompanied by JD-U President Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Bihar Legislative Council Chairman Deveshchandra Thakur and Bihar Cooperation Minister Sanjay Kumar Jha, said JD-U national Secretary and Maharashtra MLC Kapil Patil said here on Wednesday.
After a welcome by the JD-U at the Mumbai airport, the delegation will first drop in to have lunch with Shiv Sena-UBT President Uddhav Thackeray at his residence ‘Matoshri’ in Bandra.
Later, they will drive down to call on Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar at his home Silver Oaks in south Mumbai for a tete-a-tete over high tea.
The visiting delegation was hoping to meet Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi President Prakash Ambedkar, but he is out of Mumbai and hence the meeting has been postponed for the present, said a party official here.
Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav will meet Thackeray and Pawar in a bid to forge a national united forum of non-Bharatiya Janata Party opposition parties in the country before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
They will invite Pawar and Thackeray to join the mega-opposition conclave likely to be held in Patna next week, soon after the Karnataka Assembly elections are out.
The day will be politically crucial for Maharashtra as the Supreme Court is scheduled to deliver its verdict on the June 2022 split in the Shiv Sena which led to the toppling of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by then CM Thackeray.
As part of his initiative, Nitish Kumar has already met top Congress leaders like President Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, as well as Arvind Kejriwal, Sitaram Yechury, CPI’s D. Raja, Mamata Banerjee, Navin Patnaik, former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav and other top functionaries of different parties.
–IANS
qn/vd