The meeting of the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc, scheduled to be held on Wednesday, December 6, in Delhi to discuss the strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls has been postponed till December 18 due to the unavailability of top regional leaders, sources told Financial Express.

The decision came after top Opposition leaders, like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, decided to give the meeting of the INDIA bloc called by Kharge a miss amid resentment over the grand old party not accommodating regional parties in the recently held Assembly elections to five states.

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West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee claimed that she would go ahead with her state programs as she was not aware of the meeting call.

“I don’t know, I have no information so I kept a programme in North Bengal… If we had the information, we wouldn’t have scheduled those programmes,” Banerjee said on Monday.

However, a meeting of the Parliament floor leaders of the Opposition bloc will take place at 10 Rajaji Marg, the official residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.

Congress’ Gurdeep Singh Sappal tweeted, “A coordination meeting of Parliamentary Party leaders of INDIA Alliance will be at 6 pm on December 6th, 2023 at the residence of Congress President Sh. Mallikarjun Kharge. Thereafter meeting of Party Presidents/ Heads of the India Alliance will be scheduled in third week of December at a date convenient to all.”

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The meeting was called days after the Congress was routed in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and rumblings began among the INDIA bloc partners that the party stalled activities of the bloc and kept regional parties out of campaign.

So far, the bloc has held three meetings in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Patna. In the Mumbai summit, leaders of around 26 parties had attended and a coordination committee was formed to steer the campaign during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.