Mamata Banerjee in Delhi to attend Nehru function

NEW DELHI: West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief MamataBanerjee arrived here on Sunday evening on her first visit to the Capital since the NarendraModi regime took over.

The visit has generated speculation about the TMC chief, an erstwhile ally of Congress, building her bridges with Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Banerjee will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee to invite him for an international meet in Kolkata.

Banerjee, who had left the Capital in a huff two year ago after she broke up with Congress and exited UPA-2, is here on an invitation from Sonia for a two-day function to commemorate Jawaharlal Nehru's 125th birth anniversary.

In fact, the chief minister abandoned her plan to attend the closing ceremony of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) on Monday, to be present at the Congress function where several political leaders including from the Left have been invited.

Under pressure from the Modi government with CBI probing the Saradha chit fund scam in which some of her party leaders are under scrutiny, and the NIA investigating the growing terror network in Bengal which came to light after the Burdwan blasts, the TMC chief seems to be reworking her relations with Congress and other anti-BJP forces.

With Banerjee paying rich tributes to the country's first PM on his birth anniversary on November 14, saying great leaders like Nehru were beyond political boundaries and terming him the "architect" of modern India and a "socialist", political circles have been speculating about her renewing ties with Congress. If Sonia called her after Diwali to wish her and invited her for the Nehru function, Banerjee has also shown eagerness to return the gesture.

That BJP is making inroads into Bengal, where the party barely existed, at the cost of TMC is being seen as the most significant reason for Banerjee's change of heart towards Congress, with which she broke off on a bitter note. Speculation is rife about TMC and Congress making up for the upcoming assembly polls in Bengal in 2016.

The two parties have not been on good terms ever since Congress fared poorly in the 2012 civic polls which it fought jointly with Trinamool.