United opposition: Nitish Kumar to meet Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar may meet with NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) chief Uddhav Thackeray later this week. He is likely to visit Mumbai on Thursday.

He has already met with his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. The veteran politician has been a vocal advocate of a united opposition. He believes it can defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Nitish Kumar's former deputy and BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi called his Odisha visit a "failure". He claimed that no political discussions took place and it was "a big jolt to Nitish Kumar's opposition unity drive." He also mocked the Bihar CM saying that Kumar went to Odisha to seek land for a "Bihar Bhavan".

"Suppose he were speaking the truth, would he meet Eknath Shinde to seek land for a Bihar Bhawan in Mumbai, before calling on Pawar and Thackeray? Nitish Kumar's opposition unity drive has been a non-starter. He has met leaders like Mamata Banerjee, K Chandrasekhara Rao, Arvind Kejriwal, and H D Kumaraswamy, none of whom is comfortable with his new-found pro-Congress stance," said the BJP leader.

Maharashtra politics saw tumultuous few days after NCP founder Sharad Pawar said he is giving up party presidentship. He later withdrew the decision. Many speculate that the move was to hinder the pro-NDA elements in the party led by his nephew Ajit Pawar who are interested in allying with the BJP to get back to power.

The NCP and Shiv Sena were part of the coalition that led the Maharashtra government until last year. After the faction led by CM Eknath Shinde joined hands with the BJP, the Thackeray faction approached the Supreme Court with a plea for disqualification of the Shinde faction.