BENGALURU: leaders of nearly 26 opposition parties are slated to meet at the two-day joint opposition session in Bengaluru starting Monday where they will chalk out strategies to fight under a united platform against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the next years 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

If all the 26 party representatives remain present in Bengaluru then the number of opposition parties under the new alliance will be up 11 from last time when 15 parties attended the meeting for opposition unity hosted in Patna by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on June 23.

There was some doubt about the attendance of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which had asked the Congress to clarify that it will oppose the ordinance on Delhi services in Parliament, however on the eve of the meeting hosted by it in Bengaluru, the Congress has agreed that it will oppose the ordinance in Parliament. So now with its key condition met AAP has said that it will attend the joint session.

AAP leader Raghav Chadha said, that since the Congress party has cleared its position against Delhi Ordinance, they welcome the announcement and thus, AAP will attend the opposition meeting in Bengaluru.

Some sources however said that the presence of Sharad Pawar was doubted, since the opposition meeting comes in the backdrop of the split in the Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with his nephew Ajit Pawar splitting the group, taking a few MLAs with him and joining the Shinde led BJP government in Maharashtra.

Even the presence of West Bengal leaders was in some doubt since the recently concluded panchayat polls have witnessed widespread violence in which some people lost their lives and the state party chiefs of the Congress and Left parties have been accusing the TMC government of these atrocities. However, members of the Congress team busy organising the Bengaluru meet said that everyone has confirmed and the number of different parties attending will definitely 26.

On the forthcoming meeting Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Sanjay Raut said that the meeting will be a decisive meeting and several issues will be discussed, while Communist Party of India general secretary D Raja said that the Bengaluru meeting will be another step forward in uniting the secular and democratic parties in order to defeat the BJP and in order to save the nation and democracy

Raja said, "The two-day session will be a step further in the demonstration of the Opposition's joint resolve to defeat the BJP."

The BJP has however hit out at the opposition parties, alleging that they are a 'divided lot' and have no specific programme other than to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

BJP president J P Nadda said in Jaipur that opposition parties were in the process of forming an alliance to 'protect' their dynastic politics. "It is not a 'Patriotic Democratic Alliance' but a 'Protection of Dynasties Alliance," he said.