Mamata Banerjee invites Arun Jaitley to Bengal business meet

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has invited Union finance minister Arun Jaitley for Global Bengal Business Summit, which will be held on January 7 and 8 in 2016. Nabanna sources said that Mr Jaitley has accepted the invitation. Mr Jaitley has also invited Ms Banerjee for his daughter’s wedding in early December. Ms Banerjee has also accepted his invitation.

Mr Jaitley had attended the inaugural session of the business summit this year also. So had Mr Nitin Gadkari, Union transport and infrastructure minister. It was not clear if any other Central minister has been invited for the summit which has emerged as a major annual event in the state which Ms Banerjee organises to showcase Bengal as an attractive investment destination.

Besides leading Indian industrialists, corporate honchos from different parts of the world also participate in the summit. The PM of Bhutan has also been invited to the summit. Significantly, Ms Banerjee, who attended chief minister Nitish Kumar’s swearing-in ceremony, has already invited her Bihar counterpart, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. All of them have accepted her invitation. “If all of them show up, Didi will be instrumental in making bitter political rivals share stage in Kolkata,” a state minister said. “Didi has been blessed with profound political sagacity. She may have intensified attacks against the Modi government but for her political rivals are not enemies,” he added. Ms Banerjee has time and again advocated greater cooperative federalism between the Centre and the state. In her inaugural speech at the summit this year, Ms Banerjee had said, “Political differences will not block the road to development. Arun Jaitleyji is here to guide us, to give his advice. In a federal structure, a strong Centre and a strong state can only complement each other.”