Mamata Banerjee on three-day visit to Odisha

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Apr 17:

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee will be on a three-day visit to Odisha from tomorrow.

The West Bengal Chief Minister is scheduled to arrive here on Tuesday evening. After her arrival, she will proceed to Puri and stay there.

On Wednesday morning she will visit Shree Mandir to pay obeisance to Lord Jagannath. She will return to Kolkata on Thursday morning.

She has been declared as ‘state guest’ by the state government.

“Mamata Banerjee is visiting Odisha to have darshan of Lord Jagannath and meet party MP Sudip Banerjee. She has no other programme,” informed Akhil Giri, TMC MLA to a local television news channel.

“As per our information she is on a personal visit,” said TMC Odisha unit chief Arya Kumar Gyanendra.

Speculations are rife in media circles here over the possibility of Bannerjee having a meeting with her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik during her visit to the state.

The two leaders had a meeting at the Parliament house recently during Patnaik’s visit to New Delhi which had fuelled speculations about the emergence of an anti-BJP front.

However, Banerjee had tweeted that she had met Patnaik and had enquired about his health and there was nothing political in it.

“What’s the problem if somebody talks to somebody? So those who have stated that they are going to win 2019 polls they are themselves scared. We haven’t received any letter from her for such talks. She has only written that she is visiting Odisha,” clarified BJD spokesperson Pratap Keshari Deb on the speculation about TMC chief meeting Patnaik during her visit to the state.