Mamata convenes special Cabinet meet on July 26 ahead of Delhi visit; suspense over agenda

In a key development, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has convened a special Cabinet meeting on Monday ahead of her visit to the national capital. During her stay in the national capital from July 26-29, she is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Ram Nath Kovind and key leaders from the opposition. As per sources, the reason behind the special Cabinet meeting was unclear as the last meeting was held on Thursday itself. Speaking to PTI on Saturday, a senior Minister said, "I think there could be a discussion on some important issues which the CM wants to brief the Cabinet about". 

TMC's national foray

After a hard-fought election campaign, TMC sprung a surprise by decisively winning the 2021 West Bengal Assembly election by bagging 213 seats whereas BJP could win in only 77 constituencies. While the JP Nadda-led party won 74 more seats than the previous election, its vote share of 38.13% could not pose a challenge to TMC which garnered a vote share of 47.94%. Buoyed by its third consecutive victory, TMC is mulling projecting Mamata Banerjee as the Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Making her national ambitions clear, Banerjee propagated the West Bengal model of governance in her Martyrs' Day rally speech on July 21. Hitting out at the Centre over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Pegasus leak, the TMC chief stated, "Next week I will go to Delhi. I want to meet the important Opposition leaders Sharad Pawar ji, Chidambaram ji. If a meeting is called I will attend on 27, 28 or 29. Then we can talk about where the country is going. We are the political parties of India, we must come together against this otherwise the citizens won't forgive us".

TMC's national foray comes at a juncture when Banerjee's future as the CM is in limbo as time is running out for her to be elected to the WB Assembly. Recently, she was unanimously chosen as the chairperson of the TMC Parliamentary party despite not being a member of either Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. Meanwhile, WB BJP chief Dilip Ghosh affirmed that TMC will not succeed in national politics. According to him, TMC's earlier attempts to form a national front had failed in the 2019 General Election as BJP was re-elected with an even bigger majority. Moreover, he highlighted that the ruling party in WB had no footprint in any of the states as well.