By PTI
KOLKATA: Samajwadi Party vice-president Kiranmay Nanda Monday said that the party wants West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to campaign for it in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly election.
Nanda returned from Uttar Pradesh on Monday and is scheduled to meet Banerjee at her residence on January 18 evening when the subject would be discussed.
“The way Mamata Banerjee fought against BJP in the Bengal assembly poll was unprecedented. The entire nation saw the fight she had put up against the BJP’s juggernaut. The Samajwadi Party and our party president Akhilesh Yadav wants her to campaign for us in the UP Assembly poll. Banerjee had early communicated to Akhilesh Yadav that if needed she will campaign for the party,” he told PTI.
Akhilesh Yadav shares a very cordial relation with Banerjee and had attended the grand opposition meeting hosted by the TMC supremo in January 2019.
The election in all 403 Assembly seats of the politically most important state will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7.
Nanda said most of the campaign is being held virtually due to COVID restrictions.
Praising the TMC supremo, he said, “Mamata Banerjee is a strong leader and the way she fought against BJP is a lesson for the entire opposition. I am here to discuss with her the schedule for the campaign, be it virtual or in person. I will meet her on Tuesday”.
Banerjee had led TMC to a emphatic win in West Bengal for the third consecutive term in 2021 in the face of a stiff challenge by BJP.
One of the longest-serving fisheries minister of West Bengal during the Left Front regime, Nanda had merged his party – West Bengal Socialist Party with Samajwadi Party in 2010.
During the high octane West Bengal assembly polls in 2021, SP had decided against contesting and extended its support to the ruling TMC.