JD(U) chief and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is holding an anti-BJP conclave with non-BJP parties in Patna on June 23.
The purpose of the meeting is to bring all non-BJP parties in the country together to defeat the BJP-led government at the Centre in the Lok Sabha polls scheduled for April 2024.
Presidents and CMs representing regional parties such as Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal, Tejashwi Yadav, Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav, etc., including AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge, have confirmed their participation in the meeting.
However, no regional parties from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are participating in this crucial meeting.
There are three major regional parties in AP and TS. While YSRCP is the ruling party in Andhra Pradesh, TDP is the prime opposition party. In Telangana, TRS is the ruling party.
Both YSRCP and TDP in AP want to maintain friendly ties with BJP, even though the BJP national leaders and state leaders are targeting YSRCP and TDP by leveling corruption and misrule charges against the current YSRCP government and the previous TDP government.
On the other hand, TRS chief and Telangana CM KCR declared war on BJP two years ago after the Huzurabad bypoll. But KCR all of a sudden maintained silence on BJP, especially after his daughter Kavitha's name cropped up in the Delhi liquor scam case.
KCR started attacking Congress again, and under these circumstances, KCR decided to stay away from the Patna meeting.
With this, none of the three major regional parties from the Telugu states are playing a key role in national politics and prefer to confine themselves to their respective states, as they don't want to incur the wrath of PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah by attending the Patna meeting.