Mamata Banerjee has met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi

New Delhi, May 16: The Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at Delhi here on Monday, to discuss the Presidential elections 2019.

Mrs.Gandhi has taken the lead to scout for a candidate all the opposition parties are ready to back. She and her son and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi have spoken to most opposition leaders. Last week, from her hospital bed in Delhi, the 70-year-old Congress chief had called Ms. Banerjee.

With President Pranab Mukherjee's term set to end in July, Mrs.Gandhi has already met Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar and Sharad Pawar, the chief of the Nationalist Congress Party. Rahul Gandhi has conferred with the Left's Sitaram Yechury and Samajwadi leader Akhilesh Yadav.



But along with it, the opposition is also seen as moving to engineer a coalition of non-BJP parties for 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a second term.

"The Congress, CPM, BJP are locally working together that is their problem," said Ms. Banerjee, who reached Delhi on Monday.

But the new political alignment is creating discomfort in Kolkata, where the Congress is an ally of the Left Front, the arch-enemy of the state's ruling Trinamool Congress. The two parties are trying to play down the impression that while they are shaking hands in Bengal, the Congress and the Trinamool seem to be drawing closer in Delhi.