Mamata lands in Delhi, meets her MPs, ahead of meeting with Modi

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met her Trinamool Congress’s parliamentarians after arriving in New Delhi on Thursday.

Banerjee met the TMC MPs ahead of her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday. She discussed the ongoing monsoon session of parliament as well as the current political situation in West Bengal and across the country, sources said.

The TMC supremo landed in New Delhi even as probes by the central agencies against the Trinamool Congress’s leaders put herself and her party in a tight spot.

She will attend a meeting of the governing council of the Niti Aayog on August 7.

Banerjee’s meeting with Modi on Friday is likely to be politically significant with the several TMC leaders still under the scanner of the central agencies probing allegations of corruption against them – including her nephew and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

The TMC just had to suspend the party’s heavyweight leader Partha Chatterjee, who was also a minister in the state government, after the Enforcement Directorate seized almost Rs 50 crore in cash as well as other valuables from properties linked to him and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee over the past few days. The ED joined the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in probing an alleged scam in recruitment of teachers in the government schools in West Bengal. Both Chatterjee and Arpita were arrested by the ED. Banerjee also removed Chatterjee from her Council of Ministers.

Modi and Banerjee had a bitter war of words when they led the campaigns of the BJP and the TMC respectively during the assembly elections in West Bengal in March-April 2021. The TMC, however, had a landslide victory and defeated the BJP’s bid to wrest power in the State.

Soon after Banerjee commenced her third term as chief minister, she had a brief meeting with the prime minister at the Indian Air Force base in Kalaikunda in West Bengal, which triggered a political slugfest between the Centre and the Government of West Bengal over the state’s then chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay. The BJP criticized the chief minister and the chief secretary for allegedly skipping a meeting the prime minister wanted to hold over damage caused by a cyclone in West Bengal.

But, when Banerjee visited New Delhi in July 2021, she signalled her intent to move on, instead of continuing her personal bitterness with Modi. The chief minister had a courtesy meeting with the prime minister at his residence at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg in the national capital to discuss issues related with governance and Centre’s support to the State Government. She also had another meeting with the prime minister during her next visit to New Delhi in November 2021, continuing her bid to maintain a working relationship between the Centre and the State Government. It was around the same time when the Congress accused the TMC of helping BJP weaken the opposition with its expansion plan beyond West Bengal.