Political circles abuzz as BJP MP Subramanian Swamy to meet Mamata Banerjee today

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 24

BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy is slated to meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at her Delhi residence on Wednesday afternoon.

There is a lot of curiosity in political circles regarding what the meeting is about.

Recently, when the central government had denied permission to Banerjee to go to Rome to attend a global peace meeting, Swamy took her side.

Swamy, whose Rajya Sabha term will expire in the coming April, sought to know why Mamata was prevented from going to Rome. He had tweeted, “Why was Bengal CM Mamata prevented by Home Ministry from attending an international conference in Rome? Which law prevented her going?”

Swamy demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi intervene in the matter. “In the Constitution, freedom to travel is a fundamental right subject to reasonable restrictions. What was the reasonable restriction told to her? Modi should intervene & permit her,” Swamy had tweeted.

Incidentally, Swamy and his wife met West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar at Raj Bhavan, Kolkata, on Tuesday. Following the meeting, Dhankhar tweeted, describing Swamy as a “well-wisher for over three decades” and noted his “enormously benefiting out of his reflections on a host of issues”.

Mamata, following the TMC’s third consecutive victory in the Assembly elections in West Bengal held early this year, is set upon making the TMC a national-level player by 2024 when the next general election is slated.

On Tuesday, cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad, former Congress leader Ashok Tanwar and former JD (U) MP Pavan K Varma joined the TMC in Delhi in the presence of Mamata.

The official reason for Mamata’s Delhi trip is to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and raise various state-related issues with him. Her meeting with the PM is slated to take place at 5 pm on Wednesday.