After the West Bengal assembly election results last year that saw a Trinamool Congress (TMC) victory, union home minister Amit Shah and chief minister Mamata Banerjee may face each other for the first time next month.
Shah is likely to reach Kolkata on November 5 for the Eastern Zonal Council meeting.
This venue is likely to be state secretariat Nabanna. The chief ministers of Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim, and Odisha are also expected to be present there.
West Bengal government sources told News18 that the union home ministry has given a confirmation for Shah’s visit. Confirmation for other chief ministers has not reached yet, they added.
If Nitish Kumar attends this meeting, that too will be interesting as the Bihar chief minister will be meeting Shah after a realignment in the power structure in the state with the BJP being pushed to the opposition.
It is not clear yet whether the union home minister and the West Bengal chief minister will have a one-on-one meeting.
Sources say border issues between the states and the progress of the east corridor may be discussed in the meeting with Shah and the CMs. There are issues related to the international border in Bengal and Sikkim that too may come up.
Shah being the home minister is chairman of four security councils and, therefore, he will be attending.
It is still not clear whether he will participate in any party programmes or not.
A BJP leader told News18, “We still have not got any confirmation but we would definitely want to meet him.”
In 2018, a similar meeting of CMs took place in Kolkata, and the then union home minister Rajnath Singh and Mamata Banerjee attended.
Banerjee has skipped the October 27-28 “Chintan Shivir” of home ministers in Haryana, but she will be present in the Eastern Zonal Council meeting, said insiders.
Sources in the state government said that following the federal structure, Banerjee now keeps politics and governance separate. Dialogue with the Centre is required for the development of the state and as the chief minister she will follow that, they added.
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