No other party more communal than BJP : Mamata Banerjee

"I maintain contacts with everybody including Hardik Patel. I do not want to alienate anybody, there is no party in the country that is more communal than BJP," Banerjee told reporters after meeting NCP chief Sharad Pawar in the national capital.

Speaking on the no-confidence motion against the Modi Government, the Trinamool Congress supremo, who is in Delhi on a four-day visit, said, "This government is in the process of winding up. Which government doesn’t take up a no-confidence motion otherwise.  BJP is scared many of their own MPs will not vote."

Replying a question on alignments in poll-bound Karnataka, Mamata said she wants the  Congress to go with Deve Gowda. "But that’s Congress decision."

Over the last four months, Banerjee  has met many opposition leaders, including Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and DMK working president MK Stalin. The Tuesday dinner assumes significance in the backdrop of Mamata and Telangana CM Chandrashekar Rao's meeting in Kolkata regarding the "anti-BJP and anti-Congress" front.

In a significant development,  Banerjee on Tuesday met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Rout. 

She said meeting Sharad Pawar was a "routine visit."

However, her meeting with Pawar assumes significance given her increasing efforts to reach out to non-BJP political leaders in recent times, which is being seen as an attempt to play a key role in national politics by  forming a united opposition grouping before next year's Lok Sabha elections.

According to reports, Banerjee, a bitter critic of the BJP and Narendra Modi, is  expected to meet UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi as well.

She had recently called for unity among all the anti-BJP forces to defeat the saffron party in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Banerjee had recently met  TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, who called on her to discuss the process of setting up a federal front against the BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre.