Akhilesh Yadav meets Mamata Banerjee at West Bengal secretariat

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, amid the tense political atmosphere in the poll-bound state due to the SIR exercise.

Mr. Yadav, who was on a personal trip to Kolkata along with his wife and Lok Sabha MP Dimple Yadav, reached state secretariat ‘Nabanna’ around 1.40 pm, a senior official said.

He said, “This is a courtesy meeting. The two leaders are holding talks in the CM’s office.” PTI.

Mr. Yadav, who was in Kolkata to attend a family function, attacked the BJP on Monday, January 26, 2026, saying: “Didi (Mamata Banerjee) defeated ED; now we are confident that she will defeat BJP once again.”

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s comments were in reference to Banerjee’s recent raid on the investigation agency’s I-PAC office and the house of its director Pratik Jain.

Referring to the electronic devices that the CM recovered from the agency’s search operation premises during the raids, Mr. Yadav said the BJP was yet to forget the “pain of losing its pen drive”.

“While Mamata Banerjee talks about love and brotherhood, the BJP talks about separatism. The BJP is not trying to increase its votes through SIR; it is trying to reduce the votes of the opposition.

“We expected a constitutional body like the Election Commission to remain neutral while carrying out this exercise. But our experience in states like Bengal, Bihar and UP shows us that this is only a way of reducing the votes of the BJP rivals,” Mr. Yadav said.

Akhilesh: Only ‘Didi’ can resist BJP’s attack in India

Mr. Yadav met Ms. Banerjee and praised the TMC chief for her “courage to confront the attacks of the BJP”.

The former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, along with his wife and Lok Sabha MP Dimple Yadav, held a meeting with Ms. Banerjee.

“Only ‘Didi’ (Mamata Banerjee) can withstand the onslaught of the BJP in this country,” Mr. Yadav, who was flanked by the West Bengal Chief Minister, told reporters after the meeting.

“Attempts are being made to implement NRC under the garb of special intensive revision of voter rolls (SIR) and harass people,” he alleged, citing the experience of the list revision exercise in Uttar Pradesh, where around 2.89 crore voters were deleted from draft lists.

Mr Yadav’s meeting with Banerjee lasted around 40 minutes.

“We will give full support to Mamata Banerjee in her fight to save democracy,” he said.