Mamata proves a handful for Bengal Congress

Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee is proving to be a hard nut to crack for the Congress as first she skipped Thursday’s meeting of the Union Cabinet,convened to discuss the issue of price rise,and then called Congress president Sonia Gandhi pro-people and praised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his initiative to check inflation.

“Sonia Gandhi is a pro-people leader. Both Soniaji and the Prime Minister Manmohanji know our stand on the issue of price rise of LPG and other petro products. It is good that they have not increased the prices during the Cabinet committee meeting,” said Mamata after holding talks with senior West Bengal Pradesh Congress leaders who,according to sources,were told by the high command to call on her at her residence.

Maintaining “we (Trinamool Congress and AICC leadership) have the best of relations”,Mamata said “as opposition parties,we will fix up a common agenda for fighting the ensuing civic polls and set up a joint committee comprising our leaders and leaders of the Congress”.

The decision to set up a joint committee on the civic elections assumes significance as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee,who is also party state president,had announced recently that district units of the party would decide on alliance for the civic polls. The leaders who called on Mamata were state working presidents Subrata Mukherjee and Pradip Bhattacharjee and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Manas Bhuniya.

While Bhattacharjee termed it “a cordial meeting” and said “we shared a common platform regarding the Gorkhaland and the issue of violence in the state”,senior Congress leaders from the state have used the example of her predecessor in the Railway Ministry,RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav,to caution the party high command against yielding to her pressure tactics.

“Lalu Yadav kept on hailing Sonia Gandhi in Delhi and finished the Congress in Bihar. Mamata Banerjee is on the same path. Outside Bengal she is showering praise on Soniaji and in the state she is trying to usurp the Congress,” senior West Bengal Congress leaders are learnt to have told the party leadership in Delhi.

Underlining the need for a “respectable seat-sharing” in the civic polls so that the party does not lose the battle for the Assembly polls next year,party leaders,including Raiganj MP Deepa Dasmunshi,wife of ailing Congress stalwart Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi,are learnt to have met Sonia Gandhi recently and communicated the sentiment.

“I would urge Mamata Banerjee to be liberal (in seat-sharing). She is an aspirant for the Chief Minister’s post in the Assembly elections next year. The Congress wants to help her and not compete for the top post,” Murshidabad MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Chowdhury told The Indian Express.