Mamata arrives in Delhi on 4-day visit, likely to meet PM today
New Delhi: Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived here on Thursday on a four-day visit and is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday to discuss multiple issues, including GST dues, for her state.
She will attend a Niti Aayog meeting on August 7, also on the cards is a meeting with Opposition leaders, sources said. Banerjee had given the council's last year's meeting a miss. She is expected to raise the concerns of non-payment of GST dues and federalism issues at this year's meeting. The state government has not received money meant for Bengal's housing scheme too.
She is also scheduled to meet President Droupadi Murmu and may also call upon Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate in a money-laundering case. Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo, met her party's MPs and discussed with them the current session of Parliament and the road to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, party leaders said. Party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who accompanied her, also met the TMC MPs on Thursday.
The TMC supremo also sought suggestions for the names of the seven new districts in Bengal announced by her recently, party leaders said.
TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay said: "We met (Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj) Giriraj Singh and he had promised to resolve the MGNREGA issue within 48 hours. It has been over a month and all I received is a four-page answer which I have given to Mamata Banerjee."
Speaking to the media, TMC Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said: "All issues are important for us, whether it is a price hike, or misuse of central investigating agencies, or women's safety in our country. We have been protesting against the Centre's stand and will continue to do so. Parliamentarians have already informed the party supremo and she has guided us."
TMC Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Deb condemned how Delhi Police 'restrained' the Bengal CID team from probing and conducting a search at South-west Delhi's RK Puram area, in regard to the MLA cash haul case on Wednesday.
Deb also said that it is "disgraceful" that the arrested Congress MLAs from Jharkhand are claiming that BJP is trying to topple the JMM-Cong coalition government in Jharkhand and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has a major role to play in it.
"Our Hon'ble Chairperson @MamataOfficial held a meeting with all MPs in Delhi. The current Parliament session, the road to 2024 & various issues were discussed, with several activities & initiatives outlined for the coming days. We are always committed to serving the people," the TMC, sharing photographs of Banerjee's interaction with party MPs, later tweeted.
Banerjee is also likely to meet K Chandra Shekhar Rao, MK Stalin, Bhagwant Mann and Arvind Kejriwal. It was learnt that the Opposition parties have prepared a list of tainted political leaders against whom the central agencies have not taken any action just because they have joined the BJP.
