Shah Mamata to meet at EZC for the first time post-CAA

    Kolkata/Bhubaneswar, Feb 25 (PTI) West Bengal Chief
Minister Mamata Banerjee would meet Union Home Minister Amit
Shah during the Eastern Zonal Council meeting in Bhubaneswar
on Friday for the first time after the Citizenship (Amendment)
Act was enacted.
    Banerjee, who has been a bitter critic of the CAA-
NPR-NRC issues, already reached the Odisha capital where the
EZC meeting will be held under the chairmanship of Shah.
    State government officials and TMC leadership remained
tightlipped whether the two leaders will hold any one-on-one
meeting on the sidelines of the meeting.
    Banerjee did not attend meetings of the Niti Aayog and
several others convened by the BJP-led Union government and
now her decision to take part in the meeting chaired by Shah
has raised eyebrows in the political circles here.
    CPI(M) legislative party leader Sujan Chakraborty
wondered why Banerjee is silent on ongoing violence over CAA
in Delhi and hinted that it is part of a "tacit understanding
between the BJP and the TMC".
    "Delhi is burning as @RSSorg & its minions are
creating havoc in the capital. But @MamataOfficial is
unusually silent! Another message to @AmitShah before the
Bhubaneswar meet? Another exposure of the under the table
agreement between @BJP4India & @AITCofficial on the offing?"
he tweeted.
    The TMC leadership, however, denied the claim saying
it is for keeping a working relationship with the Centre.
    "If we don't attend meetings, opposition parties make
it an issue. If we attend meetings, then also they have an
issue. In a federal structure, it is expected that both the
state government and central government will have a working
relation," a senior TMC leader said.
    West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh welcomed
Banerjee's decision to attend the meeting but took a swipe at
her for not attending previous meetings convened by the union
government.
    "It is good that she is going to attend the meeting.
We welcome it. Maybe she has changed her mind, as anti-CAA
protests are now getting weaker with every passing day," he
said.
    During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the
city in January, Banerjee had paid a "courtesy visit" at Raj
Bhawan.
    Meanwhile, a Bhubaneswar report said Banerjee was
welcomed by Odisha's Parliamentary Affairs Minister B K Arukha
on behalf of the state government.
    After her arrival, the West Bengal chief minister left
for Puri and scheduled to have 'darshan' of Lord Jagannath on
Wednesday.
    At the Bhubaneswar airport, Benerjee said she will
meet her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik on Thursday.
    Chief Ministers of Bihar and Jharkhand, Nitish Kumar
and Hemant Soren respectively, are also scheduled to attend
the EZC meeting here. PTI PNT AAM
NN NN

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)