West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will meet her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar on March 23 amid discussions on the formation of a Third Front ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Though Banerjee prefers to call the meeting “a courtesy call”, as she will visit Puri on Wednesday after reaching Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, Trinamool insiders believe that a discussion on an alliance of regional parties is also expected. Patnaik, ahead of the assembly polls in the state, is maintaining equidistance with both the Congress and BJP, like the Trinamool Congress.

To take the discussion on the Third Front ahead, former Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy will meet Banerjee at her residence on March 24, Banerjee said ahead of her visit to Odisha. Trinamool leadership has made it clear that the party will keep an equidistant stand from both BJP and Congress and Banerjee will reach out to other like-minded parties.

“The regional parties are very competent. Whenever regional parties meet, we discuss the federal structure of the country and various other issues. The central government creates policies while the implementing authority is the state,” Banerjee said.

Recently, Banerjee held discussions with Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, during SP’s two-day national executive meeting in Kolkata last weekend. Yadav had met Banerjee at her residence and discussed strategies for the coming Lok Sabha polls.

Yadav had said that ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the regional parties are trying to create an alliance or Front and Banerjee is working towards it. Telangana CM KCR and the Bihar CM are also proactive about the alliance of regional parties, Yadav had said.