Kolkata, Oct 26: Chances of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Union Home Minister Amit Shah coming face to face on November 5 are high as the latter is scheduled to attend and chair the meeting of the Eastern Zonal Security Council at the Bengal secretariat of Nabanna.
State secretariat sources said that Mamata Banerjee will be attending the meeting in all probability. The chief ministers from Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and Sikkim are also likely to attend the meeting.
However, till now it is not clear whether the Union home minister and the West Bengal chief minister will have any separate one-to-one meeting on the occasion of the former’s visit to Kolkata.
Amit Shah, by virtue of being the Union home minister, is the chairman of all the five zonal security councils in the country. He has already attended two such zonal regional council meetings recently. His office has also confirmed his presence at the meeting at Nabanna on November 5, 2022.
However, there is no information with the state unit of BJP on whether the Union home minister will attend any party- related programme during his visit to the city.
Meanwhile, prior to that on November 2, Mamata Banerjee will be flying to Chennai to attend the 80th birth anniversary of the elder brother of the West Bengal Governor, La Ganeshan. It is learnt that the governor personally invited her to attend the function while he went to her residence on Monday on the occasion of the Kali Puja celebration at the chief minister’s residence. The chief minister too has accepted the invitation.
It is perceived that with the chief minister accepting the invitation, the bitter tussle between the state government and the governor, which was a regular feature with the current Indian Vice- President Jagdeep Dhankhar in the governor’s chair before, is over for the time being.(IANS)