Mamata to meet Shah; BJP says she's making 'futile attempts' to save scam-tainted TMC leaders

Ahead of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's slated meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Bhubaneswar on Friday at the Eastern Zonal Council (EZC) meet, the BJP Thursday said she was making "futile attempts" to save TMC leaders involved in scams.

The Trinamool Congress leadership was quick to return fire saying Banerjee attending the meeting was an attempt to maintain a working relationship with the Centre.

Banerjee, who has been a bitter critic of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, National Population Register (NPR) and any nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC), would meet Shah during the EZC on Friday for the first time after the enactment of the amended citizenship law in December.

She had not attended meetings of the Niti Aayog and several others convened by the BJP-led government at the Centre. Her decision now to take part in the EZC meeting to be chaired by Shah has raised eyebrows in the political circles here.

"It seems good sense has prevailed in the TMC leadership. She is going for the EZC meeting after opposing policies of the Centre and skipping several meetings called by it. It seems that she is trying to make some desperate attempts for a setting to save her party leaders," West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.

"But let me make one thing very clear - our leader Amit Shah will never go for any sort of setting," he asserted.

Several TMC leaders have been interrogated in the chit fund scam in the state by the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI.

State government officials and the TMC leadership were tight lipped when asked whether Banerjee and Shah would hold any one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of the EZC meet in Bhubaneswar.

Reacting to Ghosh's statement, TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee asked him to stop making "baseless and foolish statements".

"These are baseless allegations. We don't want to comment on Dilip Ghosh's statement and make him a hero. In a federal structure, it is expected that both the state and central governments will have a working relation," he said.

Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, Adhir Chowdhury wondered why Banerjee and her party were yet to condemn the BJP for the communal violence in Delhi. He also urged her to boycott the EZC meeting in protest against the Delhi riot.

The opposition CPI(M) took a dig at TMC saying that Banerjee's attending the EZC meeting was part of a "tacit understanding between the BJP and the TMC".

"When all political parties are demanding Amit Shah's resignation, the TMC is maintaining a stoic silence," CPI(M) legislative party leader Sujan Chakraborty said.

Banerjee wrote a poem on Wednesday condemning the violence in Delhi and sought answers for the incidents of vandalism and arson. She had on Tuesday expressed concerns over the incidents of arson and violence in the national capital and appealed to people to maintain calm and peace.

Coal royalty revision, railway projects and Left Wing Extremism (LWE) are some of the issues that are likely to figure in the Eastern Zonal Council meeting at Bhubaneswar on Friday.

The meeting will be chaired by Shah and attended by the chief ministers of Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand.