New Delhi, Aug 1 : After meeting a host of opposition leaders during the day, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday evening.

Banerjee invited Kejriwal for the January 19 mega rally she has planned in Kolkata.

Earlier, Mamata Banerjee met UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and leaders of several other parties and declared that her priority is to defeat BJP in the Lok Sabha elections next year, and that the issue of prime ministership would be settled collectively later.

Banerjee met leaders of various parties including Shiv Sena, AIADMK, Samajwadi Party, TDP, YSCRP, DMK, RJD, Kerala Congress-Mani. She also called on JD-S leader and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda in Karnataka Bhavan and senior BJP leader L. K. Advani in his chamber in Parliament.

While Shiv Sena is a constituent of the the BJP-led NDA, AIADMK is considered friendly towards it.

Banerjee met Congress leaders Ahmed Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad, Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, AIADMK leader M. Thambidurai, Kerala Congress-Mani leader Jose K. Mani, suspended BJP MP Kirti Azad, Shiv Sena member Sanjay Raut,'DMK's Tiruchi Siva, Vijay Sai Reddy of YSRC Party, Misa Bharti and Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav of RJD. She also met TDP MPs and Jaya Bachchan.

Former Law Minister and Congress leader Ashwani Kumar also met Banerjee.




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New Delhi, Sep 24: The Congress on Tuesday cited BJP MP Kangana Ranaut's purported remarks on farm laws to allege that the ruling party was making efforts to bring back the three laws that were repealed in 2021, and asserted that Haryana will give a befitting reply to it.

The Congress shared on X an undated video of Ranaut in which she is purportedly saying in Hindi, "Farm laws that have been repealed should be brought back. I think this may get controversial. The laws in farmers' interest be brought back. Farmers should themselves demand this (to bring farm laws back) so that there is no hindrance to their prosperity.

"Farmers are a pillar of strength in India's progress. Only in some states, they had objected to farm laws. I appeal with folded hands that farm laws should be brought back in the interest of farmers."

In a post in Hindi along with the video, the Congress said, "The three black laws imposed on farmers should be brought back: BJP MP Kangana Ranaut has said this. More than 750 farmers of the country were martyred, only then did the Modi government wake up and these black laws were withdrawn."

Now BJP MPs are planning to bring back these laws, the Congress alleged.

"The Congress is with the farmers. These black laws will never return, no matter how hard Narendra Modi and his MPs try," the opposition party said on X.

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate also shared the video of Ranaut on X and said, "'All three farm laws should be brought back': BJP MP Kangana Ranaut. More than 750 farmers were martyred while protesting against the three black farmer laws. Efforts are being made to bring them back."

"We will never let that happen. Haryana will answer first," she said in an apparent reference to the assembly polls in Haryana.

Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera also shared the video on X and said it was the BJP's "real thinking".

"How many times will you deceive the farmers, you two-faced people?" Khera said in a post in Hindi.

The three laws -- Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act -- were repealed in November 2021.

The farmers' protest started at the fag-end of November 2020 and ended after Parliament repealed the three laws. The legislations came into force in June 2020 and were repealed in November 2021.