West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to visit Odisha today

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister and All India Trinamool Congress’ National President Mamata Banerjee will arrive in Odisha on a three-day visit today. She is likely to call on her counterpart and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) President Naveen Patnaik and will visit Lord Jagannath temple in Puri during her trip to the state.

According to sources, this will be built as a private visit and there will be no political discussion during this visit.

Trinamool Congress sources said that the chief minister will reach Bhubaneswar on March 21 evening and will leave for Puri. She is scheduled to stay at Nirman Nivas upon her arrival in Puri and will visit Srimandir to offer prayers to Lord Jagannath on the morning of March 22. Jagannath Swain Mohapatra, Ramakrishna Dasmohapatra and Rajesh Dasmohapatra will accompany her to the temple. Special arrangements will be made for Mamata’s darshan on the 22nd as the Banaklagi ritual will be performed in the temple on the same day.
On March 23, Mamata Banerjee will meet with Naveen Patnaik before taking the return flight to Kolkata from Bhubaneswar.

Though it has specified that it will be an unofficial visit, the upcoming one-to-one meeting between Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik has sparked speculation of the West Bengal chief minister’s initiative to forge an alliance of regional parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls without keeping Congress in the fray.