The seven-party ruling Grand Alliance in Bihar pressed the 2024 Lok Sabha election button on Wednesday, coming out with a strategy to counter the BJP with a joint public rally.

Chief minister and Janata Dal United (JDU) Nitish Kumar, deputy chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, as well as senior leaders from other allied parties, will address the meeting. The move will also showcase the alliance’s unity before the voters.

The joint campaign will start with a public meeting in Purnea on February 25 and will be repeated in different districts of the state.

“Bihar has always been a state that has led changes in the country’s politics. It is time to show the unity of the Opposition in the general elections. It will start from Purnea and its message will spread across the nation,” RJD state president Jagadanand Singh said at a joint briefing of the Grand Alliance.

Singh asserted that the leaders, workers, and supporters of the Grand Alliance parties from the neighbouring districts of Purnea — Kishanganj, Araria, Katihar, Supaul, Madhepura, Saharsa and Bhagalpur — would also participate in the rally.

“The communal forces are conspiring to pollute the atmosphere of peace and secularism in the country and the state. It is time to unite and give them a befitting reply,” Singh said.

JDU state president Umesh Kushwaha expressed hope that the joint public rally will begin the countdown against the BJP-led government at the Centre, which has given nothing except rhetoric and assurances. Speaking on the occasion, Congress leader Madan Mohan Jha said that the Congress was continuously working with the Grand Alliance against the BJP.

The Grand Alliance includes the RJD, JDU, Congress, former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS), CPI-ML, CPI and CPM. It came to power in the state after Nitish quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in August last year and joined hands with it.

Of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, the BJP at present has 17, the JDU 16, the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party five, while the Lok Janshakti Party and the Congress have one each.

However, the BJP, the JDU and the then Lok Janshakti Party contested the 2019 general elections as allies, sweeping 39 out of 40 seats in the state.

The Congress had managed to retain its Kishanganj seat. The realigned political situation and its share of votes could cost dear to the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls next year.