Mamata Banerjee to meet Opposition leaders in Delhi ahead of Winter Session

The meeting is likely to focus on the Centre's rolling back of the three farm laws

The Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday to make yet another attempt to mend fences between the two opposition parties ahead of the winter session of Parliament.

Banerjee arrived in New Delhi on Monday. She may be joined by the Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee during her meetings with Gandhi and the leaders of other opposition parties in New Delhi. The Congress president may also be joined by the party’s de facto leader Rahul Gandhi during the meeting with the top leadership of the Trinamool Congress.

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The meeting between the Gandhis and the Banerjees are taking place even as the Congress of late accused the Trinamool Congress of trying to indirectly help the BJP by splitting the secular votes, particularly in Goa. The Trinamool Congress too accused the Congress of not being serious about fighting the BJP.

Banerjee herself had met Congress president Sonia Gandhi during a visit to New Delhi in July and proposed setting up a steering committee with the leaders of all the political parties. The Trinamool Congress leaders alleged that the Congress had not taken any such initiative over the past few months to take the campaign by the opposition parties against the BJP-led Government at the Centre from Parliament to the streets.

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Trinamool Congress consolidated itself further in West Bengal by trouncing the BJP in all the four assembly constituencies, where bypolls were held on October 30 last. Banerjee had earlier this year stalled the BJP’s juggernaut and led her party to win a third term in power in West Bengal, despite extensive campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The Trinamool Congress is now trying to expand beyond West Bengal and targetted Tripura and Goa. Banerjee opened her party’s door for the leaders of the Congress – like Luizinho Feleiro in Goa and Sushmita Dev, a former Lok Sabha MP from Assam, to oversee its campaign in neighbouring Tripura.

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Goa will go to the polls in February-March this year and Tripura a year later. The BJP is in power in both states.

The Trinamool Congress of late consolidated itself further in West Bengal by trouncing the BJP in all the four assembly constituencies, where bypolls were held on October 30 last. Banerjee had earlier this year stalled the BJP’s juggernaut and led her party to win a third term in power in West Bengal, despite extensive campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The Congress also swept the recent bypolls in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan, beating the BJP, which, however, did well in Madhya Pradesh and Assam.

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