Kolkata: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu held a closed door discussion with his West Bengal counterpart Mamanta Banerjee in the town of Kharagpur in West Bengal on the future plans of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance).
The meeting between Banerjee and Naidu took place for approximately 15 minutes late Thursday evening, according to a well-placed source in the TrInamool Congress (TMC).
The two leaders met and spoke about the future plans of the ‘Mahagatbandhan’. Naidu and Didi (Banerjee) also discussed about the TDP leaders meeting with Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi Wednesday, a senior TMC member told this agency.
The source also stated that the proposed meeting of the leaders of the opposition parties scheduled for May 21 may be deferred by a day or two which will help Banerjee to be present.
“It’s not decided that the meeting will be held May 21… it seems that it might be deferred by a couple of days and take place after May 23. Didi may be taking part in it,” said the sources. However, other TMC sources said that ‘Didi will only attend the meeting if there is the chance of the opposition coming to power’ once the results are out.
Naidu and Banerjee are believed to have also talked about the voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) issue and the probable voting percentage in the so far held five phases of polling in the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections, the TMC leader informed.
Earlier, Naidu joined Banerjee at a campaign meeting of TMC at Kharagpur where he praised her and urged people to vote for Trinamool to oust the BJP from power.
Banerjee, who has floated the idea of federal front of regional parties, has been playing an important role for unity of the anti-BJP bloc.