2019: Mamata to meet Deve Gowda, Sonia today

TMC leader aims to rally Opposition parties against the BJP in the run up to next year's elections.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee will to meet former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) veteran H D Devegowda at Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Banerjee, who is on a visit to New Delhi since Tuesday, will also meet Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi at the latter’s residence at 10 Janpath in the national capital. She will meet Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal too.

The Trinamool Congress leaders said that the party supremo’s meetings with the top brass of other opposition parties were aimed at adding momentum to the efforts to forge a formidable coalition to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the parliamentary elections in 2019.

She will invite Gandhi, Devegowda, Kejriwal and other leaders of the opposition parties for a rally the Trinamool Congress would hold in Kolkata in January next year. The rally will formally launch the joint campaign of the opposition parties to take on the BJP in the parliamentary elections, Trinamool Congress leaders said.

Banerjee on Tuesday met Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar in New Delhi. She also had a meeting with BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha and former leader of the saffron party Yashwant Sinha at the residence of veteran lawyer Ram Jethmalani. Both Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha have been vocal critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP president Amit Shah.