Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has reportedly decided to take her nephew and party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee to Patna on Thursday for the major meeting of the key players of the national Opposition scheduled for Friday.

The meeting is being organised by Bihar chief minister and JDU chief Nitish Kumar at the Trinamul supremo’s behest.

Mamata’s decision to have the Diamond Harbour MP accompany her is in tune with her apparent efforts over the past couple of years to project him nationally, party sources said.

“It was her decision to take Abhishek along. It is not unusual, given the general pattern of her recent political trips outside Bengal, since Abhishek became Trinamul’s national general secretary,” said a senior Trinamul MP.

“He represented the party, with or without his aunt, in meetings of the national Opposition last year,” he added.

Mamata and Abhishek are expected to reach Patna on Thursday evening and return to Calcutta on Friday.

Abhishek Banerjee. File photo

At the meeting, essentially her idea, the Bengal chief minister is expected to be given substantial importance. A senior in her party pointed out that not only is she a formidable regional satrap who heads the third largest party in Parliament (counting the strength of both Houses) but is one of the foremost anti-BJP faces in the past few years.

“Irrespective of the broader outcome of the general election next year, Trinamul is most likely to be the third largest party in Parliament again, after the BJP and the Congress. So Mamata Banerjee will be first among equals in any such meeting, going forward,” the Trinamul leader said.

Since mid-March, Mamata has been on a parley overdrive with non-BJP, non-Congress parties, meeting six major regional players and having elaborate telephonic discussions with three others.

On April 24, when JDU chief Nitish and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav came to meet her as part of efforts to achieve and cement wider Opposition unity ahead of the general election, she suggested the Patna meeting.

“I am very pleased that the two leaders visited Bengal. I requested Nitishji that much like the JP Movement, a meeting of significance should take place there. The message should go out that the (national) Opposition is together,”she had said then, referring to the historic Bihar-centric political movement with nationwide impact led by veteran Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s.

Mamata and Nitish both believe in the 1:1 formula of fielding only the strongest non-BJP candidate against a BJP candidate in as many of the 543 Lok Sabha seats as possible.

However, the Congress has turned down the suggestion for it to vacate the Lok Sabha field in states with formidable anti-BJP regional satraps such as Trinamul in Bengal, SP in Uttar Pradesh and AAP in Delhi.