Mamata Banerjee has a knack for giving names to newborns ranging from babies to institutions to schemes to buildings and even flyovers.

On Tuesday, the Bengal chief minister proposed the name of a newborn entity — Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) — and scores of leaders endorsed it.

“NDA.... Can you challenge INDIA? BJP, can you challenge INDIA?” asked Mamata at a joint news conference held after the meeting of the leaders of 26 Opposition parties in Bangalore.

“All the prominent leaders like Sharad Pawarji, M.K. Stalin, Mehbooba Mufti, Uddhav Thackeray supported me on INDIA.... I said we must adopt it before the BJP tries to grab a name like this,” Mamata later told The Telegraph.

The Bengal chief minister was the first speaker at the news conference — after the opening remarks by Mallikarjun Kharge, who announced the name of the new alliance — and she took care to explain the invincibility of the idea of INDIA.

“You had heard about the UPA.... You had also heard about the NDA which is non-existent today,” said Mamata as she sought to take an oblique swipe at a hurriedly convened meeting of NDA partners in the national capital.

Multiple sources present at the closed-door session in a five-star address in Bangalore said that the moment Mamata proposed the name for the alliance, most leaders nodded in agreement.

A source said Mamata, along with Trinamul national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien, had worked out the name on Monday night.

According to the source, some deliberations on the name did take place — Nitish Kumar had a different suggestion while Left leaders, especially those of the CPM, had reservations about Mamata’s proposal.

But finally, a consensus emerged around INDIA after Rahul Gandhi passionately “endorsed it” in his address during the meeting that lasted over three hours.

“From today onwards, all our focus, publicity and campaign will be under the banner of INDIA,” said Mamata as she threw down the gauntlet, on behalf of the Opposition, at the BJP-led government at the Centre.

A source close to her said that Mamata boarded the flight back to Calcutta — after spending 26 hours in Bangalore — with a sense of accomplishment for a variety of reasons:

• The name she proposed got approved by the majority. Those who know Mamata are aware that she likes giving names.
• Both Rahul and Sonia Gandhi spoke to her extensively, which is certain to putthe Bengal Congress — especially state unit chief Adhir Chowdhury — under pressure.
• Both at the meeting and at the news conference, Mamata was the first speaker after Kharge.
• Other leaders, including Lalu Prasad, decried Bengal Congress chief Chowdhury’s comments against her and the CPM’s claim of fighting the Trinamul in an alliance with the Congress.
• The Congress leadership promised flexibility to adopt her formula of one-to-one fights against the BJP as the strategy of the alliance.
• Approval of her other suggestions — like the formation of a coordination committee and a secretariat in Delhi — by the alliance partners. “Keep some suggestions on hold for the Mumbai meeting, please,” Thackeray apparently told Mamata in jest.

“Today the meeting was very good.... It was constructive and fruitful.... From today, we have launched the (process of) posing the real challenge (to the BJP),” Mamata said at the news conference.

The Bengal chief minister took care to explain the “inclusive” stance of the alliance as she first mentioned how people across the country — from Dalits to Muslims and people in states like Manipur and Uttar Pradesh — were living in danger and how INDIA would bring about a change by working for all.

She went after the BJP, accusing the ruling party at the Centre of “buying (elected) governments” across the country and using the central agencies against Opposition leaders.

The fact that she is vehemently opposed to the BJP’s strategy of engineering defections to topple governments was evident while she was greeting the leaders present on the dais during the news conference.

“Then we have former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.... I don’t call him a former chief minister; he will again be a chief minister,” Mamata said.

She used the platform to bring into focus how the Bengal BJP leadership was trying to uproot her government in the state. “They only threaten the imposition of (Article) 355 (of the Constitution).”