The Congress leadership has started sounding out senior leaders of many Opposition parties for a meeting to be held soon to firm up their unity efforts against BJP in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The plan to host an Opposition conclave followed the recent meetings Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi held with NCP chief Sharad Pawar, JDU leader Nitish Kumar and RJD chairperson Tejashwi Yadav.

All India Congress Committee general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal, during his recent meeting with Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackery in Mumbai, invited the latter to the Opposition meeting being planned in the capital and said the date of the meeting would be decided soon through discussions.

While Thackeray is learnt to have responded warmly to the idea of an Opposition meeting, he pointed out that travelling to New Delhi was something that never excited him much. But Venugopal requested him to spare a couple of hours for the meeting. There are indications of Rahul Gandhi too reaching out to Thackeray. The Congress leadership is also learnt to have already taken Pawar and MK Stalin (DMK) into confidence about the plan for the meeting.

For the Congress leadership, getting on board allies such as Pawar, Kumar, Yadav and Stalin and informal allies such as CPI-M and CPI are the easier part. The party will have to depend more on skilful playmakers such as Pawar and Kumar to get regional biggies who share cold vibes with the Congress such as Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool), K Chandrashekhar Rao (BRS), Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) and Akhilesh Yadav (SP) to attend the meeting. Both Pawar and Kumar recently promised the Congress leadership to do the outreach even as they spoke about the need to broaden the unity efforts. Apart from the show of unity, the meeting is expected to frame some common issues on which the opposition could position itself against the BJP and the Modi regime.