West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav's 40-minute meeting in Kolkata seems to hold kernels of a nascent effort at a front for 2029, where the Congress could be asked to take a backseat. 

Akhilesh Yadav, who was visiting Kolkata for a family event, met the Chief Minister, made the intention clear. Banerjee, he declared, is the only leader who "can defeat the BJP in our nation" - a not-so-explicit disparagement of Congress's Rahul Gandhi, who is currently the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

Akhilesh Yadav's antipathy for the Congress - dating back to the 2017 election when he lost power in Uttar Pradesh after forming an alliance with Rahul Gandhi and the "UP ka ladka" campaign - is no secret. The recent elections have only strengthened it.

Now, after the state election in neighbouring Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav is in the same boat, despite the Mahagathbandhan with the Congress.
In Bengal, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress is........

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