Kolkata: In a significant political development, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Tuesday. The meeting comes at a time when the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate has tightened noose around several leaders of the Trinamool Congress in the Saradha and Naradha chit fund cases.
Sources said Banerjee will meet the prime minister at 4:30 pm at Lok Kalyan Marg in Delhi. “Besides administrative and central funding issues, she is also likely to convey her Durga Puja greetings with traditional Bengali sweets and gifts to PM Modi,” the source said.
The two leaders were last seen together 16 months ago on May 24, 2018 during the annual convocation ceremony at Visva Bharati University in Shantiniketan. For the brief truce then, the prime minister had shown the firebrand leader the ‘right way’ and asked her to watch her steps as she was walking towards the muddy area. Banerjee then changed her path and greeted him with a shawl and a bouquet.
The ties between the two leaders have been tumultuous particularly during the campaigning for Lok Sabha elections when the two leaders were engaged in a bitter war of words. While Banerjee accused the BJP of engaging in divisive politics, Modi termed her disastrous due to political violence in Bengal.
Banerjee even stayed away from the review meeting called by PM Modi in view of cyclone Fani on May 6. However, she took everyone by surprise when she accepted the invitation to PM Modi’s oath taking ceremony, though she backed off a day before the event.
PM Modi had talked about his cordial relation with Banerjee in an interview to actor Akshay Kumar. “I have several friends in the opposition. I admit that Mamata Banerjee ji still personally gifts me Kurta every year.”
Mamata Banerjee has been one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most strident critics and tomorrow’s meeting sets lot of speculations over its key agenda.
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