NEW DELHI: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday exuded confidence that a united Opposition will take shape in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
On her first trip to the national capital after winning the West Bengal Assembly elections, so as to catalyse early unity among Opposition parties and project herself as its natural leader, she, however, said: “Opposition unity will take shape on its own.”
Fobbing off media’s questions on her leading the Opposition coalition, she said, “The country will lead the Opposition, we are the followers.” Mamata’s first big-ticket meeting on Tuesday was with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after which she met a few Congress leaders. She has already lined up meetings with NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar and a ‘chai pe charcha’ with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, apart from meeting her party’s members of Parliament.
During the 45-minute meeting with Modi, Mamata claimed she discussed the Covid situation in West Bengal and demanded more vaccines and medicines for the state. “I had asked for an appointment from the PM... This was a courtesy visit. Post election, following the protocol we have to meet the PM once. But I also spoke about the Covid situation. I asked him to ensure that West Bengal gets enough vaccine doses. I am not against giving vaccines to other states, but considering the population of Bengal, we need more doses,” she later told the media.
She also raised the pending issue of change of name of the state, to which the prime minister said ‘he will see’, Mamata later informed. While Mamata parried questions on raising the Pegasus snoopgate with Modi, she demanded that the prime minister convene an all-party meet to discuss the issue, which has paralysed Parliament. She also sought a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the spyware, though a day earlier she had set up a probe panel led by retired SC judge Madan Lokur into it. The Congress leaders she met were Kamal Nath, Anand Sharma and Abhishek Singhvi. Nath claimed he had called on her to congratulate her for her poll victory.
Chai pe Charcha
“Congress Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has called me for a chai pe charcha,” Mamata said. He schedule for Wednesday had a meeting with party MPs followed by high tea with media. The meeting with Sonia is at 4.30 pm after which she will meet Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal
Advance planning
On the need to expedite an Opposition coalition, she said, planning has to be done in advance. “Like there is election in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Tripura. Like how it happened in Tripura with our boys and the issue of Dainik Bhaskar,” she said