Mamata may meet Oppn leaders in Delhi: says will meet 'old and new friends'

Delhi: With the run-up to the 2022 state assembly elections gaining pace, and a slow but significant realignment of forces aimed at a major challenge against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections being envisioned by many an opposition party, the upcoming trip to Delhi by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee with plans to meet opposition leaders has caught the attention of national political observers as much of political forces.

Mamata said on Thursday that she would visit the capital during the monsoon session of Parliament. "I have not visited Delhi since the [WB state] election. This was because of the prevailing Covid-19 situation in the state… Usually I visit when Parliament is in session and meet many old and new friends."

She also said if time permitted she would meet the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind. Both visits are generally viewed as courtesy calls in the capacity as a state chief minister.

What makes her visit more newsworthy is the fact that several Opposition leaders are currently engaged in parleys towards the 2024 Lok Sabha election. It is also viewed against the background of poll strategist Prashant Kishor having had discussions with the Congress leaders recently and speculations going rife about his joining the Congress rank. Kishor had played an active role for evolving the strategy of Trinamool Congress in the April elections to West Bengal assembly.

To put it in background, although the opposition would like to put up a united resistance to the BJP's strong position in parliament now, in a recent initiative by former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha leaders like Mayawati of the BSP and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, were conspicuous by absence and could not be inducted into the move. However, the left parties and NCP leader Sharad Yadav attended actively. The meet was not claimed as a conclusive line-up and was instead seen by the attendees as a warm-up for wider moves, but Mamata's joining forces with such a drive, if it comes through, would lend strength both symbolically and thanks to her stridently anti-BJP postures of recent times.