All the constituents of the ruling alliance will jointly organise ‘dharnas’ at the block level across the state, according to some senior leaders. These protests will also lay the foundation for the national opposition meeting by getting together the masses on a common platform.

To reinforce the importance of caste in state politics, the focus of the protests will remain the need for caste-based census and issues directly impacting the different social groups in the state, the leaders cited earlier said.

Apparently, the purpose of local-level protests is also to make Bihar chief minister and JDU chief Nitish Kumar “the voice of national opposition against the BJP”.

According to JDU’s spokesperson and Member of Legislative Council Neeraj Kumar, Bihar’s Grand Alliance is trying to present a model for the opposition unity against the BJP at the national level.

“Apart from highlighting issues like unemployment, inflation and misuse of constitutional institutions, we are also making people aware about the BJP’s reluctance to conduct caste-based census,” he told ET.Sources said senior leaders of all the seven constituents of the alliance are accommodated in the coordination committees, which are active at three levels–state, district and blocks.The state-level coordination committee has state chiefs and other senior leaders, including leaders of the legislature party. “This co-ordination committee regularly holds its meetings. Generally, RJD’s office is selected as a venue for such meetings,” a source in CPI-ML said.

At the district level, the coordination committees include the district chiefs of the parties which are part of the alliance and MLAs of the district concerned. The district coordination committees also hold regular meetings to mobilise the workers of the grand alliance.

“It was our old demand to form the GA’s coordination committees at the three levels… We hope the committees will play a good role to counter the BJP at the ground level in the coming 2024 LS polls also,” Santosh Sahar, a member of the CPI-ML’s central committee, said.