The Trinamul Congress on Sunday snubbed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s overture and ruled out any possibility of an alliance with the Congress ahead of next year’s LS elections. Party MP and spokesperson Derek O’Brien said Sunday that the Trinamul Congress will go it alone in the polls. TMC general secretary Mukul Roy too endorsed these sentiments.
On Saturday, while returning from Russia after attending last week’s G-20 summit, Dr Singh set off speculation about the revival of ties between the Congress and Mamata Banerjee’s TMC ahead of the 2014 elections. Speaking to reporters aboard his special flight, Dr Singh said the possibility of an alliance could not be ruled out. “There are no permanent enemies and friends in politics. I do not rule out alliances. Mamata Banerjee was a very respectable member of the Congress at one time and as leader of the Trinamul also we were happy to have her in our government. We would very much like that like-minded, secular-minded persons should work again to give our country’s polity a thrust in favour of secular elements,” Dr Singh had said.
Explaining why his party didn’t need an alliance with the Congress, Mr O’Brien said the TMC was “marching ahead” and had no need of a partner. “The people of Bengal have given us an overwhelming mandate, first during the 2009 Lok Sabha election, followed by the 2011 Assembly elections, and now even in the panchayat polls, which the Trinamul Congress swept, defeating the CPI(M), Congress and BJP and winning 13 of the 17 districts,” he said.
Mr O’Brien also referred to Ms Banerjee’s call to the regional parties with national aspirations to come to a platform to pave the way for the victory of a non-BJP, non-Congress government at the Centre. The TMC will try to mobilise regional parties to ensure that a corruption-free, efficiently-run government could rule the country that would treat states in the true federal spirit, he added.
Dismissing Mr O’Brien’s claim that his party could contest elections on its own, Leader of the Opposition Surya Kanta Mishra, who is also a CPI(M) politburo member, said: “Both the Congress and Trinamul Congress are keeping the door ajar for an alliance, but this is the back door.”
The state Congress, however, did not share Dr Singh’s enthusiasm for alliance with Ms Banerjee. “What he said was his personal opinion. A final decision will be taken only by the party high command,” said MoS for railways Adhir Chowdhury.