Pranab opens a Left front: Mamata put no riders

Asked whether the Congress has promised Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee that it will not take the Left’s support to form the next government,Mukherjee said: “I have entered into an alliance (with the Trinamool Congress) and I know that there is no such pre-condition.”

Mukherjee,who is also the president of West Bengal state Congress unit,said that his party might not require the Left’s support,but at the same time he did not rule out any possibilities of joining hands with the Left.

“In politics nothing can be ruled out,” Mukherjee replied,when asked whether his party will seek Left’s support.

Mukherjee criticised the CPM-backed Third Front and termed it as a “conglomeration of political parties” that had failed to even project its prime ministerial candidate. “There is no reason to believe that the Third Front will get more than 272 seats in the Lok Sabha to form a government at the Centre,” Mukherjee said.

“I am not a political astrologer. But I believe that people of the country would not give a fractured mandate this time to have another hung Parliament. The Congress has formed electoral adjustment with regional parties and I

think we will be able to form the next government,” Mukherjee added.

He justified the party’s decision to strike an electoral adjustment with the Trinamool Congress,which was once a part of the BJP-led NDA coalition.

He said: “Trinamool Congress is not a communal party. Earlier,we could not forge any electoral tie-up with it because they were with the NDA. Mamata has categorically said she is no longer with the NDA. She did not support BJP’s presidential candidate in 2007,giving a clear indication that she was gradually de-linking her party from the NDA.”

On the issue of Gorkhaland,Mukherjee said that the Congress would not accept the demand for a separate statehood for the Gorkhas in Darjeeling.

“Even our party is opposed to the separate statehood demand of Vidarbha and Telengana. We never encourage separatist moves and demands for separate statehood in any region of the country,” Mukherjee,who is seeking re-election from Jangipur,said.