Opposition parties will meet in their new "INDIA" avatar on Thursday morning in Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge's room in Parliament House an hour before the start of the monsoon session to plan floor strategy.

Though most of the Opposition parties that came together in Bangalore on Tuesday have been meeting regularly during recent Parliament sessions, this will be their first meeting as a bloc. Earlier, there used to be a UPA bloc and a non-UPA grouping which would agree on issues and work together in Parliament where Opposition coordination has been smoother than outside.

Party leaders from both Houses are expected to be present at the meeting where the priority will be to identify the issues that ought to be jointly raised during the monsoon session. The situation in Manipur is top on the agenda of the Opposition, particularly since Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained radio silence on it.

The Opposition would want to go for the jugular on an issue over which the government is visibly on the back foot. Given that Manipur is ruled by a BJP chief minister, it is for the Opposition a prime example of the failure of the BJP’s "double-engine governance" argument that it repeatedly dangles as a bait during election campaigns.

The new-found bonhomie in the Opposition camp is likely to be in display when the government brings in the bill to replace the Delhi ordinance that took away control over the bureaucracy from the elected Delhi government of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

And, with another round of Assembly elections round the corner, price rise is something the Opposition will want to discuss, eager as the parties are to keep the focus on bread-and-butter issues that find resonance among the people.