Mamata likely to attend United India rally at Vizag on Sunday

Kolkata: With the highly anticipated Lok Sabha elections drawing closer, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee is likely to attend a United India rally at Visakhapatnam on Sunday.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telegu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu has invited Banerjee to address the rally. National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are expected to address the gathering as well.

Banerjee is likely to address a political rally at Dhubri in Assam in support of the Trinamool Congress candidate on April 5. She is likely to publish the party's election manifesto on Wednesday.

It has been learnt that the manifesto will be divided into two halves. The first part contains the development work carried out in Bengal in the past eight years, while the second part contains the failures of the Narendra Modi government in the past five years.

It was Mamata Banerjee who had initiated the move to set up the United India front to oust Narendra Modi. On January 19, the historic United India rally was held in Kolkata, where leaders of 21 political parties took part.

The rally was addressed by political veterans like Sharad Pawar, Farooq Abdullah, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, and Mallikarjun Kharge. There were youngsters like Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav and Hardik Patel in the rally as well. M K Stalin had also addressed the rally.

Banerjee was the first political leader to criticise the banning of high value notes announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016. Within half-an-hour of the demonetisation being announced, she had said that it would stall the development of the country and affect the common man badly.

Over the years, economists of both national and international acclaim had pointed out the disaster which had hit the Indian economy due to the decision of the Narendra Modi government.

One after the other, Banerjee has highlighted the shortcomings of the BJP government. Over 12,000 farmers have committed suicide, hasty implementation of GST has affected the industrialists and traders badly and Modi's statement that Rs 15 lakh would be deposited in the bank accounts of every Indian, has not come true.

Banerjee has spoken about the importance of the regional parties and emphasised that in order to save the Indian Constitution, the regional parties should be strengthened.

Political experts said that Banerjee's presence at the rally would increase the strength of the United Front. In the 2014 election, BJP had bagged three seats in Andhra Pradesh but experts feel that the party has a slim chance of retaining them in 2019.