Kanimozhi meets former Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata as DMK outreach fuels third-front talk

Kolkata: Senior DMK leader Kanimozhi met former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Thursday.

The Lok Sabha MP met Banerjee at her residence in Kalighat in south Kolkata, a TMC leader said.

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"Kanimozhi held a closed-door meeting with Mamata Banerjee at her residence. Several issues were discussed," he said, without divulging the details.

The meeting comes days after Kanimozhi held discussions with Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai and NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar in Delhi.

The outreach has drawn attention amid strains between the DMK and Congress and differences among several regional constituents of the opposition INDIA bloc.

The TMC and Congress are constituents of the INDIA bloc at the national level, but their relationship in West Bengal has remained contentious.

The two parties have recently sparred over the October 6 bypoll.

The state Congress claimed that the TMC approached its central leadership with an offer to leave the Nandigram seat to the party, a claim rejected by the Mamata Banerjee-led bloc.

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The DMK-Congress relationship has also come under strain following the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

The Congress is now part of the ruling alliance led by actor-turned-politician C Joseph Vijay's TVK, while the DMK is in the opposition.

The TMC is also navigating a period of political churn as the BJP came to power in West Bengal, ending its 15-year rule. The party is facing dissent within the state assembly as well as among its parliamentary ranks, presenting additional challenges for Banerjee.

The DMK had skipped an INDIA bloc meeting in June, while the party has since adopted a more confrontational stance towards the Congress.

Against this backdrop, Kanimozhi's meetings have prompted speculation about efforts to strengthen coordination among parties outside the Congress-led framework, although there was no official indication that the discussions were aimed at forming a new political grouping.