Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav is likely to reach Kolkata on Friday to attend a rally called by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee there.
SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said: “Akhilesh will be in Kolkata on January 18-19 and will participate at the public rally at Brigade Parade Ground on January 19 and also call on the WB chief minister Mamata Banerjee”.
Akhilesh and Mamata have often supported each other. When he was chief minister of UP, Akhilesh and Mamata Banerjee held a public meeting in Lucknow against demonetisation in November 2016. Akhilesh had hosted Mamata and his party had provided most of the logistics support to the rally.
Similarly, Mamata had supported Akhilesh during the family feud, on becoming the national president of the party, and recently congratulated him for the SP-BSP alliance.
Akhilesh has skipped most of the ‘opposition unity’ meetings, except the one in Karnataka during the new government’s swearing in there. He has skipped the ones organised by Chandrababu Naidu or KCR, and also the swearing-in ceremony of Kamal Nath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in Bhopal.
First Published: Jan 18, 2019 08:31 IST