Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav met Congress president Sonia Gandhi at her residence in Delhi.

They went with a pitch to bring all opposition parties together to defeat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2024.

The meeting at Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence is being considered very crucial in forging an opposition unity as efforts are on to reconcile differences between the Congress and some regional parties that have been at loggerheads traditionally.

This was Kumar's first meeting with Gandhi since he severed ties with the BJP and joined hands with the RJD and the Congress to form the government in Bihar in August 2022.

In an earlier visit, Kumar had met Congress's Rahul Gandhi with a view to forge an alliance of all non-BJP parties, while he was in Delhi.

At that time, he had also met CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary D Raja, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, INLD president Om Prakash Chautala, SP leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav, NCP president Sharad Pawar and CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya. 

For Lalu Yadav, too, it was the first active political engagement in a long time and highlighted the special relationship he shares with Congress's interim president.

Post the meeting, the two leaders informed the reporters that Sonia Gandhi has reserved her opinion till the time Congress's new president is elected on 17 October.

Many on social media suspected that Kumar and Yadav had been snubbed by Congress's matriarch who did not even oblige them with a photo op.

BJP leader Amit Malviya tweeted that Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav came to meet Sonia Gandhi in a much talked about meeting.

However, there is not a single photo of the meet. Sonia Gandhi insulted Bihar and sent away contender for PM post, Nitish Kumar, after humiliating him.

Congress, which has been undergoing turmoil in Rajasthan, continues to be a party on the decline. The people of its own party do not trust the members of the Gandhi family anymore.

The most recent case is of more than 90 Rajasthan MLAs siding with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot over the wishes of party high command.

Yet, Kumar, who has taken a huge step by breaking his alliance with the BJP, has been putting his hopes on cobbling up an alliance with regional party satraps.

(With inputs from PTI)