Kejriwal to seek Bengal CM's support against central ordinance on bureaucrat service control

Kolkata, May 23 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will meet his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee here on Tuesday and seek her support against the Centre's ordinance to negate Supreme Court's order handing over the control of administrative services in the national capital to the AAP government.

The two chief ministers are scheduled to meet at the state secretariat of Nabanna here this afternoon. As per sources from the state unit of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Kerjriwal is expected to seek Trinamool Congress's support to block the Centre's ordinance in the Rajya Sabha.

After the meeting, the two leaders are scheduled to hold a joint press conference. Kejriwal has already approached the leaders of the different opposition parties and the chief ministers of different non-BJP ruled states seeking support on this count and Tuesday's meeting with Mamata Banerjee is a part of that exercise, the AAP sources said.

BJP's national vice-president and party Lok Sabha member Dilip Ghosh has, however, ridiculed the meeting. He called it a futile exercise by the Opposition parties to project a credible face against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

"In 2019, Mamata Banerjee herself tried to be the face and hence she arranged an assembly of opposition party leaders in Kolkata. But after that her party lost in many constituencies in West Bengal in 2019. This time she is scared to project herself as the face of opposition and hence is desperately holding meetings with the leaders of other opposition parties," Ghosh said.

Recently, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Deputy Tejashwi Yadav visited Kolkata and held a meeting with Mamata Banerjee at the state secretariat.

Following the meeting, both Banerjee and Kumar emphasised that all anti-BJP forces should work together with open minds and shed their ego to establish a grand-opposition alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Before that, Samajwadi Party leader and the Leader of Opposition in Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Akhilesh Yadav also met the chief minister at the latter's residence in South Kolkata.

Both Banerjee and Yadav stressed on the consolidation of unity of the regional parties to take on BJP in 2024.

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