Dada in and Didi out: Bluff called, she puts up brave face

"The game is not over yet," said Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, breaking her silence after her arrival in Kolkata from Delhi today. "Whatever I have to say I will say tomorrow."

It was 9 pm, and as she left Writers' Buildings, it was clear that for the first time since her historic win over the CPM in Bengal, after getting her way again and again with a weak UPA — be it on FDI or NCTC or Dinesh Trivedi or the pension Bill — Mamata had over-reached and stumbled.

How that will play out in the days to come isn't clear. The state unit of the Congress wants out of its alliance with the TMC but the central leadership is in no hurry. It has trumped her on Pranab Mukherjee, it doesn't want to rub it in.

Mamata, however, put up a brave face, although not as defiant as it was the last 48 hours. Asked if she had been betrayed by Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party who now backed Mukherjee, she said: "I do not say so. He is a political leader. Political leaders have compulsions. But those who are thinking the game is over, it is not so."

She declined to comment on the Delhi drama in which she was the lead actor. She tried to look cheerful: "I thank the people for electing Trinamool Congress candidates in the bypolls," she said. What she didn't say was that her party had retained the two assembly constituencies of Bankura and Daspur but with a sharp dip in vote share — as much as 4 per cent in Bankura, 3 per cent in Daspur.

As evening rolled on, most Ministers had left their offices. No one was willing to comment on anything. For over two hours uninterrupted, she was closeted with Finance Minister Amit Mitra, Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee and Urban Development Minister Firad Hakim in her chambers. Sources said that Mamata is said to have remarked: "The Congress trapped me."

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