Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav met AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal at the Delhi chief minister’s residence on Sunday to express support for his pitch for Opposition unity against a Delhi ordinance.

Last week, the Centre overturned a recent Supreme Court judgment that had restored powers of transfers and postings of senior civil servants to the Delhi government after eight years.

Kejriwal told reporters after the meeting: “Shri Nitish Kumar is currently involved in a movement that is trying to bring all theOpposition parties on a common platform. The idea is to unite all the non-BJP parties. I have requested him that after the Opposition parties unite, we would urge them to stand for the people of Delhi in the Rajya Sabha and oppose the illegal ordinance that has been promulgated by the central government.”

The Aam Aadmi Party leader said he would meet Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on May 23 in Calcutta, and Maharashtra leaders Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar on May 24 and 25 in Mumbai.

Kejriwal said: “If this bill is introduced in the Rajya Sabha, then we will get the Opposition parties to defeat the government, and if we successfully manage to do that, then in some sense this will be a semi-final before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. An important message will be sent to the people across the country that in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections the BJP government is on its way out.”

Kejriwal, Nitish and Tejashwi had met in April after the JDU leader got the go-ahead from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to rope in Opposition parties that are not on talking terms with the Congress for a front against the BJP-led NDA.

Nitish told reporters after Sunday’s meeting: “How can powers given to an elected government be taken away? It’s against the Constitution. We stand with Arvind Kejriwal. We are trying to bring together all Opposition parties in the country.”

Kejriwal, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik, Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati were among the prominent national Oppositionleaders not invited to the swearing-in of the Congress government in Karnataka on Friday.

Although CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury was invited, Kerala’s ruling Left Democratic Front and former party chief Prakash Karat did not take kindly to the omission of Vijayan.

Nitish and Tejashwi were among the leaders of 18 Opposition parties who were invited.

The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee has taken the same line as the BJP, justifying the ordinance and additionally demandingPresident’s rule in the Union Territory.

Tejashwi told reporters: “Now when the Supreme Court order was issued, then the matter regarding the sharing of powers between the state and central government became very clear. But with the ordinance, the central government has once again done injustice to the people of Delhi. Similarly, the government has been troubling all the Opposition-ruled state governments across the country…. The BJP wants to change the Constitution.”