Patna, March 1 In a bid to offer her the party's support in the forthcoming assembly elections, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav met Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Monday.
Mritunjay Tiwari, the RJD state spokesperson confirmed the development. Yadav met the CM at her official residence in Kolkata's Kalighat area.
"The RJD earlier had one MLA in West Bengal and it has a sizeable vote bank in the state's border areas. The districts connected to Purnea, Kishanganj, Katihar have a significant population of Yadavs and Muslims. Besides, large numbers of these two communities live in Kolkata city, outer Kolkata and Asansol. Put together, they have the capacity to change political equations," Tiwari said.
The West Bengal assembly election will be held in 8 phases from March 27 to April 29.
Keeping this in view, the RJD has already sent two senior leaders Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Shyam Rajak to West Bengal. They met Abhishek Banerjee, one of the main strategists of the Trinamool for the West Bengal polls. Sources have said that both Trinamool and RJD have reached a mutual understanding for the polls.
At present, Mamata Benerjee and Tejashwi Yadav are the only two leaders in the country who are taking on PM Narendra Modi. Tejashwi single-handedly took the Mahagathbandhan close to victory in the Bihar assembly elections.
As far as the BJP is concerned, its leaders believe that West Bengal is the final fortress they want to breach.
Bhai Virendra, the MLA from Maner and chief spokesperson of RJD, told : "The main objective of the party is to prevent the BJP from coming to power. The people of West Bengal are very intelligent and they know the ground reality. They know the tricks of the BJP. Mamata Benerjee has played an important role in development of West Bengal. Every RJD member is dedicated towards Mamata Didi and we will make her CM once again in West Bengal."
"RJD will do a pre-poll alliance with the TMC. The seats distribution between these two parties will be decided later on," Virendra further said.
Dr Nikhil Anand, chief spokesperson of BJP hit back at RJD and said that Tejashwi Yadav is doing political tourism in West Bengal and Assam.
"Tejashwi Yadav is competing with Rahul Gandhi when it comes to political tourism. Tejashwi wants to give an impression that he is a larger-than-life leader in the RJD. He was trying to achieve more bargaining capacity with the Congress in Bihar, hence the RJD announced it will contest elections in West Bengal, Assam and Kerala," Anand said.
( With inputs from IANS )
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