After hiccups in the Opposition alliance in West Bengal, it seems the Trinamul Congress is finally ready to enter into a deal with its ally, the Congress, to sound the death knell for the long Left Front rule in Bengal. In a quid pro quo, Trinamul Congress Mamata Banerjee has agreed to allow Congress trouble-shooter Pranab Mukherjee to become the next chief minister of Bengal, while the Congress has reconciled to not to challenging Ms Banerjee’s authority and supremacy in Bengal politics.
Ms Banerjee said that the alliance with the Congress will be kept intact for the Assembly polls but with a rider: she will not tolerate “blackmail”.
“I might not contest the Assembly polls and devote time for campaigning but I can always enter the House within six months in the event of becoming chief minister,” Ms Banerjee said. She said that she had also proposed to Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee that he could be at the helm of affairs in Bengal in case the Trinamul Congress-Congress alliance comes to power.
Asked who would handle the railway portfolio in the Union Cabinet if she becomes chief minister, she said that it would remain with the Trinamul Congress as long as it was an ally of the UPA government. “It must be remembered that the Trinamul Congress being the largest ally of the Central government has only one Cabinet minister,” she said.
Amid apparent worsening of ties, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi asserted in recent public speech in Bengal that the party would never accept “an alliance at the cost of its self-respect”.
While the assertion by Mr Gandhi had come as a morale booster to the demoralised CPI(M) mandarins who were hoping to drive a wedge between the Trinamul and the Congress to sail through the Assembly polls in 2011, for the Trinamul Congress it was “threat perception”.
Evading Mr Gandhi’s assertion that his party wanted an alliance “with honour”, Ms Banerjee said, “I would not give my opinion on comments by others. But I personally do not like being blackmailed. I do not like others doing so.”