Amid strong wave of criticism by all the opposition against Congress President Rahul Gandhi‘s disqualification as MP, JDS Chief & former Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy held meeting with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at her Kalighat residence on Friday.In the backdrop of Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as MP, Banerjee and Kumaraswamy have reportedly discussed about the role of BJP against the opposition parties and about the present political situation in the country, people in the know said.

“The coming election in Karnataka has also been discussed by the two leaders apart from the present political situation in the country,” sources said.

Amid strong “Third Front” buzz, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met Naveen Pattanaik in Odisha on Thursday. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had met Banerjee last Friday at her residence. Banerjee had held discussions. about strategies for the coming Lok Sabha polls and alliance of regional parties.Yadav has said that the regional parties are trying to create an alliance or Front and Banerjee is working towards it. Telangana Chief Minister KCR and the Bihar chief minister are also proactive about the alliance of regional parties, Yadav stated.

The meetings with non-Congress, non-BJP leaders are said to be part of the Trinamool’s efforts to ensure an “opposition unity with regional powers”.

“Mamata Banerjee will connect with various like-minded regional parties nationally, who are capable of fighting BJP in their own states,” Trinamool sources said.

The Congress‘ top brass, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and former AICC chief Sonia Gandhi, met on Friday to deliberate on the party’s strategy going forward after Rahul Gandhi‘s disqualification from Lok Sabha. A meeting was already scheduled for Friday evening but after Rahul Gandhi’s conviction, top leaders assembled at 6 pm at the party headquarters with his disqualification being top of the agenda. Besides Kharge and Sonia Gandhi, Congress general secretaries Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Rajiv Shukla and Tariq Anwar, senior leaders P Chidambaram, Anand Sharma, Ambika Soni, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurshid and Pawan Kumar Bansal, among others, were also present at the meeting.

Sources said Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification and party’s strategy and plans for agitations were top of the agenda at the meeting.

Rahul Gandhi was on Friday disqualified from Lok Sabha following his conviction by a Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case, an action the party termed an attempt to “silence” his voice as it vowed to fight the battle legally and politically.