Bhubaneswar:

Despite its unambiguity, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s clarification about assembly her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik later as we speak has executed little to dissuade these studying between the strains.

That’s as a result of the tete-a-tete follows one with Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister final week, during which they introduced a brand new political entrance aimed squarely at chopping out the Congress and difficult the BJP in subsequent 12 months’s nationwide elections.

Ms Banerjee can be scheduled to fulfill former Karnataka Chief Minister and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) chief HD Kumaraswamy on Friday in Kolkata, earlier than a doable one-on-one with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal within the nationwide capital later this month.

And so, makes an attempt to explain the assembly between Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik as a “courtesy meeting” haven’t satisfied political observers maintaining a hawkish eye on the state that may maintain elections subsequent 12 months as properly.

Sources add Mamata Banerjee is eager to have Naveen Patnaik on board in what regional events are describing as a “Governance Platform” to shed the bags that comes with the “Third Front” formation.

The former tag is alleged to have polled higher with leaders from opposition regional events, a few of whom have reservations about making political ambitions for the subsequent 12 months’s elections their binding issue.

It could be semantics, however the nomenclature “Third Front” robotically lists regional events behind the Congress, in a contest with the BJP, and that’s one thing that they’re eager to keep away from as a matter of notion, political observers say.

While sustaining that regional events are higher ready to tackle the BJP in 2024, Mamata Banerjee described her assembly with Naveen Patnaik as a courtesy name as she couldn’t honour an invite in the course of the Hockey World Cup earlier this 12 months.

“This is not a matter of United Opposition or anything. It’s a courtesy meet and personal meet because there was a programme in Odisha and Naveen ji sent some ministers to invite me. I told him whenever I go to Odisha, I will meet him. Kumaraswamy ji also wanted to meet me, and he is coming to meet me at my residence on Friday,” she mentioned.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose authorities has had comparable friction with the BJP as Mamata Banerjee, mentioned they’re contemplating assembly in April as a deliberate assembly of opposition Chief Ministers of regional events couldn’t materialise as a consequence of meeting periods in numerous states.

“We eight Chief Ministers, and we will go to each other’s states. We will learn from each other in areas where we have done well. This is a governance platform, it’s not a political platform,” Mr Kejriwal mentioned.