Mamata Banerjee to meet Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday

Mamata Gandhi will visit Parliament where she is expected to meet several opposition leaders before she meets Sonia Gandhi. Later, Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal is expected to call on her.

West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee will meet UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and several leaders from other parties on Wednesday as part of her efforts to forge an anti-BJP front and invite them for a mega rally to be held in Kolkata on January 19 next year.

Mamata Banerjee with Sonia Gandhi and other Opposition leaders during Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy’s swearing-in ceremony. (PTI File Photo)

The Trinamool chief will visit Parliament where she is expected to meet several opposition leaders before she meets Gandhi. Later, Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal is expected to call on her.

Banerjee met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and his daughter MP Supriya Sule, besides Ram Jethmalani, Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha on Tuesday.

Banerjee is reaching out to several political parties during her four-day visit to the national capital to cobble an alliance of opposition parties to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be next year.

Banerjee, who was earlier seen wary of involving the Congress in any federal coalition to take on the BJP, has in recent weeks appeared to be more open to joining hands with the national party to consolidate the opposition forces.

Banerjee called for the ouster of the Narendra Modi government in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as she spoke at a Christian conclave in Delhi on Tuesday.

She cited the restive situation in Assam arising from the national register of citizens (NRC), public lynchings and atrocities against Dalits and minorities to drive home her point that “the country needs a change”.

Banerjee had recently met National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on the issue. Abdullah has maintained that the Congress has to be the “backbone” of the opposition unity with its chief Rahul Gandhi at the forefront of the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls.