Mamata Banerjee-Arvind Kejriwal to discuss issues in April meet

NEW DELHI: In keeping with the new found opposition unity, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal are expect ed to exchange notes in April. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party are new allies who have converged on various issues in Parliament, especially on the land acquisition bill where the opposition took on the government and walked in protest from Parliament to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

While the date and venue has not yet been finalized, both heads have agreed to discuss various issues. “It is not certain whether they will meet, so it could also be a discussion either through video conference or over phone,“ TMC spokesperson Derek O'Brien said. He confirmed the interaction will take place next month.

While Banerjee's interest seems to be in aligning with anti-BJP forces, Kejriwal could gain from the TMC chief 's long political experience.

In fact, Banerjee has decided against continuing with her efforts to have TMC presence in Delhi after Kej riwal's success in the national capital. Instead, she plans to lend her party's moral support to AAP. Even during the Delhi elections Banerjee had declared her party's support to Kejriwal and his party .

It has been decided that outside of West Bengal TMC will concentrate only on four states -Tripura, Manipur, Assam and Kerala, O'Brien said.Interestingly , in two of the four states, Tripura and Kerala, CPM and other Left parties are the main political contenders. Apart from Kerala, Bangla language is either spoken or understood in the three other states and the TMC leadership feels it will be easier to connect with people there.

Kolkata civic polls: TV actor Sarbari Mukherjee replaces Roopa Ganguly

BJP in West Bengal on Sunday replaced Roopa Ganguly with another television actor Sarbari Mukherjee to contest the Kolkata civic polls.The party alleged on Sunday that the Roopa Ganguly TMC-controlled State Election Commission ignored the rule book by not allowing her name to be transferred from the electoral list of Sonarpur-Rajpur municipality to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. But even if the SEC acceded to BJP's demand Ganguly couldn't have been a candidate. It would have taken at least a week to file claims and objection.