Outreach in mind, Mamata to meet Sharad Pawar in Mumbai today

The Trinamool Congress head held talks with Shiv Sena leaders Sanjay Raut and Aadtiya Thackeray a day ago and visited the famous Siddhi Vinayak temple.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to meet senior politician and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar at his residence in Mumbai on Wednesday.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee comes out of the Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai,  (PTI)

The Trinamool Congress head held talks with Shiv Sena leaders Sanjay Raut and Aadtiya Thackeray a day ago and visited the famous Siddhi Vinayak temple. Banerjee, who is on a two-day tour of the country’s financial capital will also attend a host of events, including an entrepreneur's conference. She said could not meet her Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray as he is recuperating from a recent surgery.

The meetings coming in the wake of the Trinamool Congress’s attempts to spread its wings beyond Bengal is being seen as an outreach to fellow opposition leaders by the party supremo.

It also comes amid further straining of ties between the Congress and the Banerjee-led party with several leaders switching over to the ruling Bengal camp in the past few months.

Banerjee made her party’s ambitions for a larger national role clear ever since its landslide victory in the Bengal Assembly election earlier this year.

The TMC has since inducted several Congress leaders in its fold. Recently, 12 out of 17 Congress MLAs in Meghalaya defected to the TMC, making it the principal opposition party in the northeastern state.

(With inputs from agencies)