KOLKATA:  Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal and the national president of the All India Trinamool Congress, is scheduled visit  Odisha this month for a two-day visit. While there, she is expected to meet with State Chief Minster Naveen Patnaik, the leader of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

Trinamool Congress sources said , the chief minister will embark on Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha, on March 21 in the evening and spend the night there.

Mamata Banerjee will visit Puri on March 22 and pray at the Shree Jagannath Temple. She is expected to meet Naveen Patnaik on March 23 before boarding the plane to return to Kolkata from Bhubaneswar, according to Trinamool sources. It is unknown at this time whether Patnaik's office has given official confirmation of the meeting.

he possibilities of the 1-to-1 meeting between Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik has sparked speculation of the West Bengal chief minister's initiative to forge an alliance of regional parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha elctions without keeping Congress in the fray.

She is also  scheduled to meet privately with Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the opposition in the Uttar Pradesh assembly and the head of the Samajwadi Party, on Friday afternoon.

Political analysts believe that given the divergent perspectives of the BJD and Trinamool Congress on this issue, if the meeting between Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik actually takes place, it will mark an interesting turning point in opposition politics in the nation.

On the one hand, Patnaik had never been strident in advocating for any side on this issue since he had always maintained an independent identity for both himself and his party, keeping an equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress.

The Trinamool Congress, on the other hand, has been fairly loud in its criticism of the BJP and its desire for an alliance of the opposition parties; according to them, an opposition alliance would consist of local parties without the participation of the Congress.

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