Congress Defers INDIA Alliance Meet After Top Leaders RSVP No

New Delhi:

A meeting of the INDIA opposition bloc to take place in Delhi tomorrow has been postponed, sources told NDTV Tuesday afternoon. The meeting – called by Congress boss Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday, as his party was being decimated in three state elections – will now likely be held in the third week of this month “at a date convenient to all”.

The postponement comes shortly after sources told NDTV that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Samajwadi Party boss Akhilesh Yadav both plan to skip the meet. On Monday Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she too would not attend. All three are senior members of a bloc supposed to unite the opposition to take on the BJP in November’s five state polls and next year’s Lok Sabha election, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to bid for an unprecedented third consecutive term.

Sources also said Mr Kumar, Mr Yadav and Ms Banerjee aren’t the only senior INDIA leaders who backed out of Wednesday’s meeting, underlining the growing chasm in the bloc as regional parties grumble (louder and louder) over the Congress insisting that it will continue to fight elections largely on its own. Both Akhilesh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee have made that point this week, pointing out the margin of the party’s defeats could have been smaller, or even averted, if it had agreed to share seats with allies.

Earlier today sources told NDTV Nitish Kumar and Akhilesh Yadav would send representatives instead; the Janata Dal (United) leader was expected to send party President Rajiv Ranjan and senior figure Sanjay Jha, while Mr Yadav, a former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, was expected to send his uncle, and Rajya Sabha MP, Ramgopal Yadav.

READ | Akhilesh, Nitish To Skip INDIA Meet, May Send Representatives

Sources, however, indicated that the other half of the Bihar government – the Rashtriya Janata Dal – would have been represented by its top leaders – party patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav and his son Tejashwi Yadav, who is the Bihar Deputy Chief Minister.