Two-day national executive of Samajwadi Party in Kolkata from March 18

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The Samajwadi Party will organise its two-day national executive in Kolkata from March 18 to discuss the party's policies and strategies for assembly elections in the three Hindi heartland states later this year and Lok Sabha polls next year, party vice-president Kiranmoy Nanda said.

The party's national executive will be held in Kolkata after a gap of 11 years. Samajwadi Party founder, the late Mulayam Singh Yadav had flown down to the city to chair the previous meeting in the eastern metropolis.

"Our party president Akhilesh Yadav ji will come to Kolkata on March 17 and address workers meet here. From March 18, our two-day national executive will be held.

"We will discuss the party's strategies for the upcoming elections later this year in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and then the Lok Sabha polls in 2024," Nanda, the party's national vice-president, told PTI.

When asked about any possibility of a meeting between Akhilesh and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, he said nothing has been fixed yet.

"As of now, nothing has been fixed. If she is in town, then obviously, both the leaders will meet," he said.

During the 2021 assembly polls, Akhilesh Yadav announced her support for Mamata Banerjee-led TMC, which the feisty TMC boss reciprocated during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections when she campaigned for the former UP CM in the northern state.

Nanda, a former minister of the erstwhile Left Front government in West Bengal, had merged his West Bengal Socialist Party with Samajwadi Party in 2010.

"This is not the first time that Samajwadi Party's national executive will be held in Kolkata. It was held here on five occasions, including in 2012. Our national executive meeting is held in various parts of the country, including Uttar Pradesh," he said.