Mamata Banerjee to meet PM Modi on September 18

This will be the West Bengal Chief Minister’s first meeting with the Prime Minister since the BJP-led government came to power in 2019.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will visit New Delhi on Tuesday, September 17 where she is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday. Sources at the State Secretariat said that Ms. Banerjee has sought an appointment and the Prime Minister’s Office has fixed the time of the meeting at 4.30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Ms. Banerjee’s visit to New Delhi comes at a time when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is involved in a legal battle for questioning Additional Director General of the West Bengal Police’s Criminal Investigation Department Rajeev Kumar, in connection with its probe into the Saradha scam.

This will be Trinamool Congress chairperson’s first meeting with the Prime Minister after the BJP-led government came to power in 2019. The BJP also recorded its best ever tally winning 18 of the 42 seats in West Bengal.

While Ms. Banerjee had met the Prime Minister on a few occasions in his first term, the last meeting took place at the convention of the Visva-Bharati University in 2018, attended by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Even post-election results Ms. Banerjee had on certain occasions declined to declined to visit Delhi to participate in meetings called by the Centre. Ms. Banerjee is likely to return either on Thursday or Friday.

Ms. Banerjee’s attacks against the Centre particularly the BJP leadership has mellowed post her poll debacle, but she has continued to raise the pitch on issues like National Register of Citizens ( NRC), economic slowdown and the merger of a number of public sector banks’ headquarters in Kolkata.

“On the #InternationalDayofDemocracy today, let us once again pledge to safeguard the constitutional values our country was founded on. In this era of 'Super Emergency', we must do all it takes to protect the rights and freedoms that our Constitution guarantees,” Ms. Banerjee had tweeted on Sunday.