Mamata Banerjee Meets Odisha Chief Minister Amid New Front Buzz
NDTV
The meeting assumes significance off the back of Mamata Banerjee's recent interaction with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in Kolkata, where they agreed to keep both the Congress and the BJP at an arm's length.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met with her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik today, renewing the buzz of the Trinamool chief leading an initiative to forge an alliance of regional parties against the BJP.
The meeting assumes significance off the back of Ms Banerjee's recent interaction with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in Kolkata, where they agreed to keep both the Congress and the BJP at an arm's length.
Mamata Banerjee is also scheduled to meet former Karnataka Chief Minister and JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy on Friday in Kolkata. She is also likely to meet Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi later this month during her protest against what she calls "injustice and denial of funds to Bengal" and "dictatorship attitude of the union government".
The meeting between Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik, who heads the Biju Janata Dal, is being billed as a "courtesy meeting" but political observers say there is more to it as Odisha will go to polls during the general elections in 2024. Sources add Mamata Banerjee is keen to have Naveen Patnaik on board, in what regional parties are describing as a 'governance platform' to shed the baggage that comes with the "Third Front" formation.
