Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal United (JDU) leader Nitish Kumar is scheduled to meet his Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee in Calcutta this week as a part of his efforts for broad-based Opposition unity to counter the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

This will be Nitish’s first stop after meeting Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge in Delhi where he was entrusted with the task to play the role of a convener to bring together the non-BJP parties on one platform.

Asked about his upcoming meeting with the Bengal chief minister, Nitish told reporters: “I will tell everything when the time comes. I will let you all know about the developments after meeting all the leaders.”

Senior JDU leaders were upbeat about Nitish’s Bengal visit and pointed out that it will herald a new era in Opposition unity and a change of guard at the Centre in the forthcoming general elections.

“A united Opposition is the dream of Nitish Kumar and Bengal is a part of it. Even otherwise Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar are natural allies. They were one state during the British period,” JDU MLC and spokesperson Neeraj Kumar told The Telegraph. “Mamata has never said that she was standing with the BJP. In fact, she is ruling Bengal after receiving a thumping mandate from the people against the BJP,” the spokesperson said on Bengal chief minister.

Bengal with its 42 Lok Sabha seats is the third largest state in the country after Uttar Pradesh (80 seats) and Maharashtra (48 seats) and hence is considered an important state to put up a united resistance against the BJP.