Cong, Trinamool stick to their guns; SP deepens suspense

Positions hardened on rival sides with both the UPA government and Trinamool Congress showing no signs of resiling on their stands, a day after Mamata Banerjee announced her decision to withdraw support to the Congress-led coalition that appears to be confident about its numbers.

Samajwadi Party, a key outside supporter with 22 MPs, kept suspense over its strategy in case of a trial of strength in Lok Sabha in the wake of Trinamool Congress' decision to withdraw support.

Trinamool, the second largest constituent of UPA with 19 MPs, wants the government to totally withdraw the decision to allow FDI in retail, slash the Rs 5 hike in diesel by Rs 3 or Rs 4 and raise the cap on supply of subsidised LPG to 24 cylinders a year.

If Trinamool goes ahead with its decision, UPA's strength will come down to 254, 19 short of majority in Lok Sabha, but with the support of outside allies like SP, BSP, JD (S) and RJD it still has the backing of over 300 MPs in a House of 545.

Grappling with a near crisis situation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today had a meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other top party leaders and the message that came out of the deliberations appeared to be that the Centre was in no mood to rollback its major reforms decisions.

"I don't know why you guys are hung up on that one word rollback. These issues (decisions) were taken after the most careful consideration. They stand," Finance Minister P Chidambaram said after a meeting of a GoM on Media.

Indicating that the government was not in a mood to go back on its decisions, he said if any of the Trinamool Ministers wanted to talked to them they will explain the circumstances that compelled the government to take decisions.

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