AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi made it clear on Thursday that there would be no alliance with the Trinamul Congress if his party did not receive its due respect. In the past three days that he had been touring different parts of West Bengal, Mr Gandhi has persistently harped on the fact that the Congress wants an alliance with dignity and honour, but this was the first time when he virtually gave a veiled warning to Ms Banerjee that it may even go it alone in the Assembly election.
“We are in partnership with Mamata Banerjee. She is a senior leader and I respect her. We will together fight the Left Front which is the single biggest problem in West Bengal. We want to continue the alliance with her. But we will not do so, if we are not respected,” Mr Gandhi said at a news conference.
In reply to a question as to what did he mean by “respect”, Mr Gandhi shot back, “I am surprised you do not know what respect is.”
He tried to drive the point home that she would not be able to bully the Congress in future seat-sharing talks. When he was asked whether the bitter memories of the collapsed alliance in the civic polls had prompted his rhetoric about dignity and respect, he said: “I cannot talk about the past but I will speak about the future.”
Mr Gandhi, however, like Union home minister P. Chidambaram, rejected the CPI(M)’s claims that the Trinamul Congress chief was hand in gloves with the Maoists. “To say Mamataji is openly supporting the Maoists is an exaggeration,” he said. Even on the land acquisition issue, he echoed Ms Banerjee’s concerns about the land losers.
Mr Gandhi made light of the question about Ms Banerjee taking a dig at him when she said she was not a seasonal cuckoo bird. With a broad smile on his lips, he said: “Do I look like a bird to you? I do not think Mamataji was referring to me.”