Mamata arrives in Delhi on 4-day visit, to meet Modi

NEW DELHI: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived in New Delhi on Thursday on a four-day visit and is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday to discuss multiple issues, including GST dues for her state.

Ms Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress chief, met her party's MPs and discussed with them the current session of Parliament and the road to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, sources said.

She also sought from them suggestions for the names of the seven new districts in West Bengal announced by her recently, they said.

On Friday, Ms Banerjee is scheduled to meet President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In her meeting with the PM, she is likely to discuss the GST dues for West Bengal, sources said.

The West Bengal Chief Minister will attend a Niti Aayog meeting on August 7, sources said, also on the cards is a meeting with Opposition leaders.

With the Trinamool warming up to the Congress in Parliament, Ms Banerjee might also meet Sonia Gandhi, who is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate in a money-laundering case.

Meanwhile, Trinamool MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay said, "We met (Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj) Giriraj Singh and he had promised to resolve the MGNREGA issue within 48 hrs. It has been over a month and all I received is a dour-page answer which I have given to Mamata Banerjee." With former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee under the Enforcement Directorate scanner in the cash-for-jobs scam in the state, sources indicated that Ms Banerjee is unlikely to address the media.

Prime Minister Modi will chair a Niti Aayog governing council meeting on August 7, where issues related to agriculture, health and economy would be discussed. The council meets regularly. Its first meeting was held on February 8, 2015.

Ms Banerjee had given the council's last year's meeting a miss. She is expected to raise the concerns of non-payment of GST dues and federalism issues at this year's meeting.