Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister (CM) of West Bengal (WB,) on the 17th of September, announced she will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
Ms. Banerjee is scheduled to meet PM Narendra Modi on the 18th of September, as a ‘courtesy call’ to discuss the various issues in West Bengal.
Mamata Banerjee said, “It’s a courtesy meet. It is our constitutional obligation to meet each other to work for the Country.”
This will be the first meeting of West Bengal Chief Minister and Narendra Modi after Modi became the Prime Minister of India for a second term. The last time Ms. Banerjee and PM Modi met was on the 25th of May 2018, during the convocation ceremony at the Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal.
Ms. Banerjee also wished Prime Minister Modi on his 69th birthday.
The Indian National Congress (INC,) the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]) and other parties said the meeting is a “part of the political match fixing” between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the TMC ahead of the West Bengal elections.
Apart from the CPI(M) and the INC, the BJP also took a dig at Mamata Banerjee and said the meeting proposal is a “desperate attempt” by Banerjee to save herself from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI.)
Rahul Sinha, the National Secretary of the BJP, said, “We all know the kind of language she (Banerjee) had used against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during elections and even after that. She never had any regard for the federal structure and had even said she does not feel the need to respect Modiji as the Country’s prime minister.” He further added, “Now, all of a sudden, why she is going to Delhi is an open secret. Everybody knows why and for what she is going.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee will meet on the evening of the 18th of September.
Stay tuned for further updates.
