Mamata Banerjee On 3-Day Odisha Visit From Today, To Meet Naveen Patnaik On Thursday

Bhubaneswar: West Bengal Chief Minister and All India Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee is slated to arrive in Odisha on a three-day visit on Tuesday and security has been tightened for her tour.

Banerjee is likely to call on her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik and will visit Lord Jagannath Temple in Puri for darshan of the sibling deities during her tour, billed as an unofficial visit.

Ahead of her visit, security has been tightened in the pilgrim town as well as the state capital.

Arrangements have been made by the Puri municipality authorities to pick up stray dogs and keen the roads clean. Stray dogs will be lodged at a veterinary hospital and arrangements have been made for their food and medical requirements, said an official of Puri Municipality.

A special team has been formed to spruce up the streets and other locations in the seaside town in view of the visit of the West Bengal Chief Minister, he said.

Sources said this will be Mamata’s private visit and no political activity is on agenda.

Mamata is slated to reach Bhubaneswar on Tuesday evening and will leave for Puri where she will stay at Nirman Nivas. She will visit Shree Jagannath Temple to offer prayers on Wednesday.

She will be accompanied by Jagannath Swain Mohapatra, Ramakrishna Dasmohapatra and Rajesh Dasmohapatra to the temple. Special arrangements will be made for Mamata’s darshan as the Banaklagi ritual will be performed in the temple on the same day.

Jagannath Swain Mohapatra said Mamata will spend around an hour inside the temple complex. A special puja ritual will be performed for 20 minutes for the West Bengal Chief Minister who will seek the blessings of the sibling deities besides offering prayers at the temples of Mahalaxmi and Devi Vimla, he said.

Mamata is likely to meet Naveen on March 23 before taking the return flight to Kolkata from Bhubaneswar.

Mamata’s proposed one-to-one meeting with Naveen Patnaik has sparked speculation of her initiative to forge an alliance of regional parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls without keeping Congress in the combine.