Mamata likely to discuss 2024 poll strategies with Stalin during Chennai visit
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who is slated to visit Chennai on November 2 is expect to discuss strategies for the 2024 General Elections with her Tamil Nadu counterpart MK Stalin, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
Banerjee has been invited by West Bengal Governor La Ganesan to his elder brother’s birthday on November 3.
The Bengal chief minister, who is likely to land in Chennai on November 2, may pay a visit to Stalin at his camp office after her arrival.
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The Trinamool Congress supremo may also meet several top politicians of Tamil Nadu who are expected to be present at Ganesan’s family function, the official added.
Expressing doubt over the outcome of the meeting, opposition party leaders questioned Banerjee’s trip to Chennai on taxpayer’s money to attend a family programme of a “temporary governor”.
La Ganesan had taken up the additional charge of West Bengal on July 18, 2022, besides Manipur after Jagdeep Dhankhar was nominated the vice-presidential candidate by the NDA.
West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury described Banerjee’s visit as “Nothing but an attempt to restore her lost credentials in Indian politics.”
“I see no reason why Banerjee is going to Chennai to attend the birthday party of one of the family members of the governor. I think this is a ploy to develop a good relationship with the Centre so that West Bengal does not get another Jagdeep Dhankhar as its governor,” he said.
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On the proposed meeting between Banerjee and Stalin, who is also the DMK president, the Congress leader said, “Didi (Banerjee is often called so and means elder sister) knows that she has lost her credibility in national politics. She had held several such meetings with many leaders earlier but those had failed miserably. This is the reason she planned this so-called meeting with Stalin. I see this as her attempt to try to restore her lost relevance in Indian politics.”
CPI-M leader Sujan Chakraborty too questioned Banerjee’s Chennai travel and called it an “excuse” to leave Bengal at a time when people are demonstrating demanding jobs.
“I don’t see any logic behind a chief minister visiting the family programme of the governor on taxpayer’s money. She is actually escaping the state when job aspirants are holding demonstrations demanding employment. She is not at all bothered about them and is fleeing from reality,” Chakraborty told PTI.
The School Service Commission scam, which is rocking the state, refused to die down as nearly 100 aspirants demanding appointment in schools blocked the thoroughfares and were detained in Kolkata’s Salt Lake area on Tuesday. They claimed to have been deprived of teaching jobs in state-run and state-aided upper primary, secondary and higher secondary schools despite having qualified in the recruitment tests conducted by the Commission.
Sit-in is on by another 100 SSC candidates continued for about 600 days at Mayo Road in the heart of the city. They claim to have qualified for school teachers’ jobs in the past years but “did not find a place in merit lists”. Former West Bengal Education minister Partha Chatterjee, a former SSC chairman, former advisor and a former president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education was arrested by central agencies in connection with the High Court-monitored probe into teacher appointment irregularity scam.
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Senior BJP leader Rahul Sinha echoed the CPI(M) and described the proposed meeting between Banerjee and Stalin as an “absolutely meaningless” one.
“She went to Goa, Tripura and Assam and she could nothing anywhere. The point is TMC has no relevance outside Bengal. She can roam around the country, but that will not yield any result,” Sinha said when contacted.
(With inputs from agencies)
