Former Calcutta mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who had switched to the BJP on August 14, visited chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s home at Kalighat here on Tuesday for Bhai Phonta, along with friend and fellow Trinamul Congress turncoat Baishakhi Banerjee.

Sources present at the chief minister’s residence during the visit said Mamata and others had spoken to Chatterjee and Baishakhi normally. They said Chatterjee had walked up to Mamata and said he had never missed Bhai Phonta at her home and decided not to miss it this time either.

However, the former minister had given the occasion a miss last year amid strained ties between the mentor and the protégé.

“They talked to each other with ease, as though nothing happened in between. After the initial awkwardness, mostly from Sovan and Baishakhi’s end, everyone was talking normally,” said a source.

“When Didi playfully admonished Sovan over his apparent weight gain, he said he had lost substantial weight after his blood sugar had increased. She was immediately rolling out a long list of dos and don’ts for him, including medication and natural remedies, to rectify the condition,” he added.

He said Baishakhi had greeted Mamata with a pronam and a box of chocolate.

Several sources in Trinamul said Baishakhi had been trying to rebuild Chatterjee’s bridges with his former party and had been negotiating through the ruling party’s secretary-general Partha Chatterjee.

Since the induction into the BJP on August 14, Chatterjee and Baishakhi were quick to express their displeasure with the new party after it became clear that the BJP had no immediate plan to give her the kind of importance she had hoped for.

Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh refused to attach importance to Tuesday’s development. “It is natural for him to visit Didi’s house on a social occasion like Bhai Phonta. He visits her every year on this day. I don’t see politics in it.”

Asked what he would do if Chatterjee were to return to Trinamul, Ghosh said: “I cannot hold him back against his wish.”