West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
The frost in the relationship between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) seems to have grown colder after the Tripura Assembly elections.
Even as party supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee made phone calls to leaders of “federal parties” such as DMK’s M K Stalin, Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray and her Telangana counterpart, TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao, the TMC and the Congress have not communicated with each other since their attempts to cobble up a coalition against the ruling Left Front and the BJP in Tripura fell through.
On Monday, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MPs met TMC Lok Sabha leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay in Parliament, seeking support in their demand for special status for Andhra Pradesh.
About the Congress, TMC national spokesperson Derek O’Brien said: “We are disappointed that our proposal for Tripura was rejected by the Congress…we have not communicated with Congress since then. But it is wrong to say that we have excluded the Congress from our talks with federal parties. We will talk. We are taking the initiative.”
The alliance attempts did not work out in Tripura over the thorny issue of seat-sharing.
Banerjee and Chandrashekar Rao spoke on Sunday after the latter’s call for a non-BJP, non-Congress national front for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. O’Brien, TMC’s Rajya Sabha leader, and Bandyopadhyay are expected to hold a meeting with TRS MPs soon to chalk out the next course of action.
Bandyopadhyay has been in touch with Sena chief Thackeray since their meeting in Mumbai last November. The Sena, although part of BJP-led governments at the Centre and Maharashtra, has been unhappy with the BJP.
Banerjee had also been invited for the wedding of Union Minister and TDP leader Y S Chaudhary’s daughter’s wedding in Hyderabad last month. Although she did not attend the event, and sent an emissary instead, that a channel with the TDP has been opened was clear when the party’s MPs approached TMC in Parliament. “They wanted our support because they said they were feeling cornered,” Bandyopadhyay said.
O’Brien also took potshots at the BJP for its jubilant mood after victories in elections in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. “The BJP should not forget that Antwerp is very far from Agartala,” he said, referring to the Belgian city known as the global diamond hub. This comes on a day the TMC held a dharna against alleged bank fraud by diamantaire Nirav Modi and disrupted both Houses of Parliament on the issue.
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- Mar 6, 2018 at 5:45 amPeople should be at a loss to understand how an alliance without associating any major All India Party can form a viable Government. There are many one or two MP Parties and everybody knows that at least 30 Parties need to associate even to just get a working majority. It was unviable even when 10 to 15 hands went up together in photo session and it is scary and nightmarish even to imagine 60 hands going up together!!! It will look more like a conference or seminar or farewell Party in a College for graduating students standing in rows for a photo session!!! KrishReply
