Mamata eyes united front, to attend Opposition meet tomorrow

Kolkata: In a bid to put up a united opposition against the BJP government, chief minister Mamata Banerjee is slated to go to New Delhi on Monday to attend a meeting of Opposition parties on December 27.

“While announcing the scrapping of notes (on November 8), (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi had said that normalcy would be restored in 50 days. However, the situation has not changed much. The 50-day deadline will be over on December 28. The CM wants to launch a more scathing attack. Tuesday’s meeting with the Opposition parties is crucial as the next line of action will be chalked out in the meeting,” a party MP said on the condition of anonymity.

Besides this, Ms Banerjee is likely to hold a separate meeting with her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal. She could also meet with President Pranab Mukherjee during her stay in Delhi, which is expected to continue till Thursday.

Ms Banerjee, who has been opposing Centre’s demonetisation move and demanding its rollback since the beginning, had participated in a protest dharna in Delhi besides holding protest meetings in Lucknow and Patna last month. She has already instructed her party to go on a week-long agitation campaign at all blocks in West Bengal beginning January 1 during which ‘Modi hatao, desh bachao’ will be the TMC’s main slogan.

“She has asked party MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy to make a list of the employees who have been rendered jobless and are returning to Bengal due to demonetisation. Bankura, Midnapore, Howrah, Hooghly and a number of other districts have witnessed workers returning to their homes after losing jobs in different states. If she gets an appointment with the President, Didi will hand over the list to him,” a senior TMC leader said.

Meanwhile, the Congress, too, is learnt to be attempting to contact all Opposition parties for a meeting to decide their future course of action in regard to continuation of their fight against the currency ban.