Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has postponed from June 12 the much-awaited meeting of Opposition parties in Patna to discuss a united front against the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Sources said senior Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge and the chief of another party had expressed their inability to be present on June 12. A new date will be fixed soon.

"We were to hold the meeting on June 12 and most of the parties, except the Congress and another party, agreed to attend it. The Congress’s report was yet to come and the leader of the other party said he cannot be in Patna on that date," Nitish told reporters on Monday.

The Janata Dal United leader added that while the heads of the Opposition parties were expected to attend the meeting, a couple of parties, including the Congress, said they could send representatives.

"All the other parties started saying that it will not be good if a representative attended the meeting instead of the party head. I too agreed that this would not do. We will now fix another date," Nitish said.

"I want the meeting to happen as soon as possible, and wish that all parties attend it."

The possible representatives that the Congress had proposed to send included senior leaders Salman Khurshid and Jairam Ramesh.

Nitish has been rooting for Opposition unity since he left the National Democratic Alliance and joined the Grand Alliance to form a new government in August last year. Apart from the JDU, Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, CPI, CPM, CPIML and the Hindustani Awam Morcha are part of the ruling alliance in Bihar.

Nitish had kicked off the unity process by inviting Telangana chief minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi president K. Chandrashekar Rao to Patna in August. He had followed it up with tours to Delhi and several other states to meet senior leaders of various Opposition parties.

He has so far met Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Kharge, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, CPI general secretary D. Raja, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPIML Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Bengal chief minister and Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, Odisha chief minister and Biju Janata Dal leader Naveen Patnaik, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray and several others.