Mamata Banerjee likely to meet PM Modi after 4 pm

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who is on a four-day visit to Delhi will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday evening.

Prior to the meeting the chief minister will also meet Congress leader Kamal Nath and Anand Sharma and is likely to meet Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday.

On Thursday, she expected to get an audience with President Ram Nath Kovind.

Banerjee will meet Modi at his 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence at 4.15 p.m. This will be the first meeting between the prime minister and Banerjee after she had skipped a post Cyclone Yaas review meeting chaired by Modi in May this year.

Banerjee met the PM separately for a moment and handed over the state government's report on the cyclone before excusing herself from the official meeting, resulting in a huge controversy.

Sources close to the chief minister said, "There are several issues like the appointment of the DGP, the financial aid for Yaas and the regularisation of the supply of vaccines for the state which are going to take the centre-stage in the meeting.

"The chief minister is likely to raise the issue of GST and the spiralling price of diesel and petrol. She might press for more vaccines for the state."

Prior to the meeting the chief minister will meet veteran Congress leader Kamal Nath at 2 p.m. and Anand Sharma at 3 p.m. The chief minister will also have a meeting with senior advocate and Rajya Sabha member from Congress Abhishek Manu Singhvi at 6.30 p.m. Sources in the CMO indicated that the chief minister is likely to meet Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday. She might also have an appointment with the President on Thursday.

Banerjee is expected to host tea for opposition leaders at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, possibly at the home of her nephew, and Trinamool Congress MP and General Secretary, Abhishek Banerjee in Delhi. The Chief Minister had issued an appeal for unity on July 21 in a speech screened in Delhi that was attended by top leaders -- including the Congress' P. Chidambaram and NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

The guest list for the tea party is now a subject of speculation but it is expected that it would range from Congress to DMK, from TRS to RJD and from Akali Dal to AAP.

On July 21, the country already witnessed the presence of a large number of leaders from the opposition parties leaving ample scope to believe that most of them will be present in the tea-party thrown by the chief minister. Apart from Chidambaram and Pawar, others present were Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, the NCP's Supriya Sule, the DMK's Tiruchi Siva, Keshav Rao of the TRS and Manoj Jha from the RJD. The Shiv Shena's Priyanka Chaturvedi, the Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav and Jaya Bachchan, the AAP's Sanjay Singh and the Akali Dal's Balwinder Singh Bunder were also there.