PATNA, May 16 -- Seven months after its drubbing in the Bihar assembly polls, the CPI-ML(Liberation), the principal Left party in the state, is holding its three-day state-level conference in Darbhanga, beginning today. The May 16-18 event will feature the party's general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, a host of other state-level party officeholders, and possibly many INDIA bloc leaders addressing the gathering. CPI(ML) local leaders said that RJD's working president Tejashwi Yadav has also been invited and will likely attend and speak at the event as the conference seeks to unite the Opposition in the face of the fight against the ruling NDA. Around 700 delegates from across the state will attend the event. State secretary of ML, Kunal, said the state level conference would discuss the strategy the party and the combined Opposition should adopt to present a united front against the challenge posed by the BJP-led NDA government in the state. "In the last few months, we have witnessed the repressive attitude of the state government to crush the democratic voices of students, unemployed youths and teachers. We now plan to launch more people's agitations to expose the alleged failures of the state government," said Kunal. He added that the issues of the working classes, students and farmers -- the pivot around which Left politics revolves -- will also be discussed, focusing on how they can be raised on state-wide platforms. The ML won only 2 seats in the November polls after putting up sound performance in the 2015 and 2020 elections, which has forced the party to mobilise its cadres and launch a new membership drive. "In our recent membership drive and renewals, we now have a strength of 125,000 members though our target was to enrol around 150,000 members. But being a Left party, we have a system of enrolling or renewing members only based on the work done at the organisational level," said Kunal. The ML leader also said there would be broad discussions with all allies of the INDIA bloc at the conference regarding the present political situation in Bihar and the effect of the West Bengal elections in which the Left parties and Trinamool Congress were defeated by the BJP. "We have seen the results of the 2025 poll in Bihar and the 2026 election in various states, including West Bengal. In that backdrop, we feel that the Opposition must have a combined approach in combating the BJP and NDA. We will focus on better coordination among Opposition parties," said Pervej, a senior party leader. Insiders in the party said the ML would also demand the allotment of one MLC seat from the RJD in soon-to-be-held polls....