The meeting of 16 Opposition parties to chalk out the strategy for the Lok Sabha elections next year started on Friday afternoon in Patna, PTI reported. The meeting is being hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav.

Leaders of the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal (United), Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Aam Aadmi Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Samajwadi Party, National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Rashtriya Lok Dal are attending the meeting.

Among those in attendance are Congress’ Mallikarjuna Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav and chief ministers of several Opposition-ruled states.

Ahead of the meeting, Gandhi asserted that the Opposition parties will the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 general elections unitedly. He also accused the BJP of dividing India and spreading hate and violence.

“You know that hate cannot be countered with hate,” he said, according to PTI. “It can be defeated only with love. The Congress is working for uniting the country and spreading love.”

Kharge urged all Congress party workers to set aside their differences and fight the 2024 general elections unitedly.

“Bihar can never leave our ideology,” he said. “If we win Bihar we will win in the country. Put aside all differences and stay united to save the country.”

Kharge also said that his party will take a call on supporting the Centre’s ordinance on the control of administrative services in the national capital – a demand put forward by the Aam Aadmi Party – before the Parliament’s Monsoon Session.

On May 19, the Centre had promulgated the ordinance to create the National Capital Civil Service Authority to administer the transfer and posting of bureaucrats serving the Delhi government. The ordinance nullified the May 11 Supreme Court verdict that the Aam Aadmi Party government in the national capital has legislative power over bureaucrats in all departments other than public order, police and land.

“Opposing or proposing it does not happen outside, it happens in Parliament,” Kharge said, according to PTI. “Before Parliament begins, all parties decide what issues they have to work on together. They know it and even their leaders come to our all-party meetings. I don’t know why is there so much publicity about it outside.”

Meanwhile, the BJP said the meeting proved that the Congress had conceded that it cannot defeat the prime minister on its own, reported ANI.

“I especially thank Congress for publicly announcing that they cannot alone defeat PM Modi and that they need the support of others to do so,” Union Minister Smriti Irani said at a press conference.