The state unit of the Congress yet again rebuffed Mamata Banerjee’s plans for an alliance with her Trinamool Congress, repeating its position that she has to first part ways with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Democratic Alliance.
“As long as she stays with the NDA, the Congress will not be able to form an alliance with her,” Congress legislative party leader Manas Bhuinya told reporters at the Legislative Assembly on Monday.
Bhuinya was reacting to Mamata’s appeal at a public rally, made in the presence of Congress leader Jayanta Bhattacharya, that the two parties unite against the CPI(M) for the forthcoming byelections to the Balagarh assembly seat in Hoogly district.
Ever since the bloody ‘recapture’ of Nandigram by armed CPI(M) cadres a fortnight ago, Mamata has been trying to get the Congress on her side. To show her earnestness, she has also been trying to maintain a distance from the BJP’s state unit by avoiding joint programmes or sharing any platform with it.
Bhuinya said Mamata must declare officially that the Trinamool Congress is not a partner of the BJP in the NDA.
“Even though she herself is not appearing in public with any BJP leader, she had sent Mukul Roy (a Trinamool member of the Rajya Sabha) with the NDA delegation led by LK Advani that visited Nandigram recently,” Bhuinya said.
Reacting to Bhuinya’s statement, a senior TMC leader said the NDA is at the national level, and the TMC wants to fight the CPI(M) at the state level. “If the Congress honestly wants to fight the CPI(M) here, it has to come to us for an alliance,” he said.
“We do not raise questions about the CPI(M) support for the Congress-led UPA government,” the TMC leader said.
The Congress, on the other hand, seems determined to show that it is fighting the CPI(M) at the state level, despite its reluctance to join hands with Mamata.
The Congress has decided to table a no-confidence motion against the Left Front government in the Assembly session scheduled to start on December 5.
“We will then see if the Trinamool supports our no-confidence motion,” Bhuinya said.
The Congress and the Trinamool between them have 51 seats in the 294-seat Assembly, in which the Left Front has an overwhelming 235 members.
