Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who is currently in Delhi, will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 5pm on Wednesday. Before that, she will meet Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Subramanian Swamy; the meeting is at 3.30pm.
This is Banerjee’s second visit to the national capital following her party’s thumping victory in the West Bengal Assembly elections 2021 and helped her become the chief minister of the eastern state for the third time in a row. It is also her first visit to Delhi after she swept the Bhabanipur bypolls held on September 30 defeating closest rival BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal to retain her chief ministerial position.
Her trip to the capital comes at a time when the Bengal CM is at a political high with a string of political leaders from various parties, including Congress and BJP, have joined the TMC. Most of the induction happened in Bengal wherein many prominent saffron party leaders, including former national vice-president Mukul Roy and Union cabinet minister Babul Supriyo joined the TMC camp. Furthermore, the TMC also made a landslide victory in the recently concluded bypolls by wresting control in Dinhata and Santipur constituencies that were earlier won by the BJP, and retained the other two in Khardaha and Gosaba. With this, the saffron party’s strength in the West Bengal Assembly went down to 70 from its original 77, while Banerjee’s camp rose to 217 from 215.
Banerjee has lately been ramping up efforts to strengthen her party’s presence in Tripura and Goa – both poll-bound states.
The Bengal CM’s visit to Delhi is seen as her continued efforts to assemble the Opposition to defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
However, what remains to be noted regarding the meeting between PM Modi and Banerjee is their discussion about the Border Security Force (BSF) jurisdiction issue, which has heated up the tension between Bengal’s ruling party and the Centre.
Prior to her visit to Delhi, Banerjee on Monday told media persons that the issue will comprise the discussions between her and PM Modi. “I…have an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi…regarding the BSF issue and other development issues of Bengal,” she was quoted as saying by news agency.
The West Bengal legislative assembly on November 16 passed a resolution against the Centre’s decision to extend the BSF jurisdiction from 15km to 50km on the international border of the state. It became the second border state after Punjab to pass such a resolution.
The central government-led by the BJP amended the BSF Act to increase the central force’s jurisdiction to 50km in West Bengal, Punjab and Assam.