Mamata Banerjee arrives in Delhi on 4-day visit, interacts with TMC MPs

NEW DELHI: West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee interacted with her party MPs here on Thursday, soon after landing in the national Capital for a four-day visit. Among other issues, the TMC members discussed the ongoing ED raids on Congress and other opposition party leaders.
While Banerjee will be meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and calling on newly elected President Droupadi Murmu on Friday, she will also attend a gathering for the celebrations for the 75th Independence Day at Rashtrapati Bhawan on Saturday and wind up the tour by attending the Niti Aayog meeting with the PM on Sunday.
Banerjee will be meeting the PM at a time when her government is under attack, with central agencies like ED investigating a teachers recruitment scam in Bengal, Partha Chatterjee, a minister in her cabinet has been arrested and other leaders close to her under the scanner.
During the interaction with party MPs, Banerjee took stock of TMC’s activities in the monsoon session and endorsed the joint opposition moves in the House against the ruling BJP, especially on the issue of raids and arrests by central agencies like ED and CBI on members of the opposition parties.
The party MPs also told her and party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee that while the arrest of senior party man and cabinet minister Partha Chatterjee came as an “unexpected development,” both the party and the government had “acted promptly and in the right direction” referring to the sacking of the minister from the cabinet as well as from key party posts, according to sources. Officially still a BJP MP, Arjun Singh (Barrackpore) who returned to TMC from BJP, a couple of months back was also present at Thursday’s meeting.
With the slew of raids, questioning and detentions being conducted by ED and other central agencies against Congress leaders -- Sonia Gandhi to Mallikarjun Kharge – and other party leaders, over the last few days, both Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee discussed the present political situation in the state (Bengal) and in the country.
In that context, the TMC leadership endorsed the coordinated move by all likeminded opposition parties to move together against the ruling BJP. It was discussed at the meeting that BJP started with a slogan “Congress-mukt Bharat and then moved on to Opposition-free (mukt) Bharat,” which is a anti thesis to democracy, against the Constitutional ethos and against democratic system and hence it needed to be fought.
At the interaction session held at Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy’s residence, Banerjee heard from most of her party MPs on various issues and boosted their energy for the rest of the session, for about 45 minutes after which Abhishek Banerjee took over, discussing the party’s moves in the context of the political situation in the state and in the country.