Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav to attend INDIA bloc's Delhi meet on December 19

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will mark his attendance at the next INDIA alliance meeting in New Delhi on December 19. This will be the fourth meeting of the opposition alliance and the first meeting since the results for five Assembly elections - Telangana, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, were announced.

RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav and Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav will also attend the Tuesday meeting. The meeting was earlier scheduled to take place on December 6, but was postponed to Tuesday.

Earlier, the meeting was postponed to December 17 after top leaders in the alliance, including Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav decided to skip the earlier scheduled meeting.

The meeting on December 6 was called by the Congress on the day the election results of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Rajasthan were announced. As the BJP crossed the halfway mark in three states, the meeting of the Opposition bloc was announced.

The last meeting of the 27 alliance parties was held in Mumbai, hosted by Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray and saw Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and chief ministers of five states in attendance.

The name of the Opposition bloc -- Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) -- was announced during the second meeting in Bengaluru. The first meeting was hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna. It was there that the parties resolved to “dethrone the BJP” in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.