Back from Patna and more than willing to carry forward her Bihar bonhomie with the grand alliance parties, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has invited her Delhi and Patna counterparts to Biswa Banga Sanmelan scheduled to be held in Kolkata in the first week of January.
While Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has accepted her, his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar and RJD chief lalu Prasad who have also been invited in the programme are likely to follow suit, Trinamool Congress sources said.“Kejriwal has given his assent and we are awaiting the same from other leaders also,” said a Government functionary.
On Banerjee’s decision to invite the anti-BJP leaders to Kolkata, a Trinamool leader said this was the right opportunity “to strengthen the secular alliance” against what he said “intolerant forces which are splitting Indian society, creating disturbance in the country in order to garner votes.”
A brainchild of the Chief Minister, Biswa Banga Sanmelan will be held in Kolkata from January 7 to 9 apparently to draw Benglis living outside India to invest in the State.
Refusing to comment on whether, Rahul Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Navin Patnaik, Jayalalitha were also in the list of invitees the leader said the event would be a “genuine platform” to forge a “bigger unity for secular and other likeminded forces which champion the cause of democratic federalism.” Incidentally, the Bengal Chief Minister had been critical of the CBI for the way it had been investigating the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam in which many of her party leaders were under the scanner.
Also livid with the Union Government for “forcibly taking away the wealth of the States” and “stopping central funds crucial for the development of Bengal”, Banerjee had on November 20 flown off the Patna to attend Nitish’s swearing-in function “with a purpose”.