West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee with former Congress presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
Credit: PTI Photo
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had said before the Lok Sabha election results that if the I.N.D.I.A. bloc wins, her party would support it from the outside, is now going to campaign for Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi in the upcoming Wayanad parliamentary seat's bypoll elections, a report by India Today has claimed citing sources.
The recent development after Banerjee had a meeting in Kolkata with senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday.
The report also claims that it was Banerjee who had earlier proposed that Priyanka fight the elections against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
When the grand alliance was first forged, Mamata Banerjee's party was present in all of its initial meeting while Trinamool MPs were often seen protesting with other Opposition leaders in the Parliament and outside on various issues.
However, later she decided to go solo in the Lok Sabha elections after seat-sharing talks with the grand old party fell through. West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had reportedly disagreed with the TMC's offer of just two seats in the Lok Sabha elections.
Now that I.N.D.I.A. had defied exit poll expectations and are set to be a stronger force in the Parliament after the special Parliament session begins from June 24, the TMC is trying to show that it stands firmly with the Opposition alliance.
Soon after the Lok Sabha elections were over, the I.N.D.I.A. leaders met at Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's house, where the Bengal-based party's second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee was also present.
After the election results, Abhishek further met Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray separately.
On Tuesday, a TMC delegation comprising Members of Parliament Kalyan Banerjee, Sagarika Ghose and Saket Gokhale met Thackeray at his residence. The delegation was in Mumbai to meet officials of capital market regulator SEBI over the alleged stock market manipulation following exit polls earlier this month.
Earlier on Tuesday, the delegation members called on NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar who supported their demand for an investigation into the alleged stock market manipulation.