Veteran actor and Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan came to Bengal to campaign for Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress during the ongoing Assembly election. She landed at Calcutta airport at 6.30 pm on Sunday.

Jaya Bachchan will begin with a campaign for three-time Tollygunge MLA Aroop Biswas, who faces Union Minister Babul Supriyo in defence of his seat, reports NDTV.

The rival contestant and the seat are both significant as Babul Supriyo is a popular singer and Tollygunge is Calcutta's 'cinema district' that houses studios where films are shot.

As reported by NDTV, Jaya Bachchan's presence also underlines Mamata's plan to take on a ruthless BJP poll machine - to stitch together a pan-India working alliance of non-BJP parties, for this and other elections.

Last month Akhilesh Yadav said his party would campaign for the Trinamool. This was after he said the BJP is spreading "politics of hate (and) confusion and propaganda" in Bengal, and said his party "will not allow this conspiracy".

The day before Akhilesh Yadav's comment, RJD chief Tejashwi Yadav - who came agonisingly close to beating the BJP in Bihar - said: "It is our duty to strengthen Mamata didi's hands and fight the BJP."

The Shiv Sena, a long-time ally of the BJP that split over government formation in Maharashtra, has also backed Ms Banerjee; senior leader Sanjay Raut described her as "the real Bengal tigress".

Sharad Pawar's NCP, a member of the ruling alliance in Maharashtra, has also expressed support.

The development came days after the Bengal CM wrote a letter to opposition leaders including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav “for a united and effective struggle against the BJP’s attacks on democracy and Constitution” and suggested that a meeting should be held after the assembly polls to “deliberate the issues and chart out a plan of action”.

The letter has been sent to several opposition leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, DMK leader MK Stalin, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, CPI(ML) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.