After holding talks with Samajwadi Party chieftain Akhilesh Yadav, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to visit Odisha later this week apparently to meet her counterpart Naveen Patnaik. Banerjee who will visit the Puri Jagannath Temple will also “call on Navin Babu” at Bhubaneshwar, senior leaders in the Trinamool Congress said not ruling out political talks between the two leaders.
Banerjee — a devotee of Lord Jagannath — who seems to have been facing one of the worst crises of her political career in the wake of the multi-departmental recruitment scam exploding the her government’s face sending a number of her close aides including Partha Chattaerjee and Anubrata Mondal to jail will offer special prayers at the Jagannath Temple, sources said.
Banerjee had performed a yagna or special prayers at her residence ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections that saw her coming out with flying colours routing the BJP by many miles.
Though Banerjee is likely to raise a dialogue on a possible non-BJP, non-Congress alliance the Biju Janata Dal chief who too has maintained equi-distance from the two national parties is unlikely to join the alliance being contemplated by Banerjee, Yadav et al, sources said reminding Patnaik had hardly been in any political meeting which was staunchly anti-Narendra Modi.
Earlier this week like Banerjee, SP chief too had said that they were not contemplating any Congress-led alliance against the BJP adding however that they would definitely try to stitch together an alliance keeping the two bigger parties out.