Mamata

Calcutta, March 30: Mamata Banerjee and Somen Mitra, once sworn enemies, almost came together for Tuesday’s Rajya Sabha elections.

Party officials who worked the back channels of the Congress and the Trinamul Congress have revealed that Mamata had offered to support Somen ? blamed for her 1997 exit from the Congress ? if he contested the election.

“Her objective was to deal a blow to the Congress which denied her the grand alliance, get a strong organisation man like Mitra over to her side to rebuild Trinamul and ensure the defeat of Subrata Mukherjee, at present her enemy No. 1,” said a senior party official, who was involved in the negotiations.

Neither leader was willing to confirm this in public, choosing to describe it as “another figment of the media’s imagination”.

A coming together of the two is seen as implausible because Somen first defeated Mamata in the election for state Congress president in 1993, with Subrata’s help, and then is said to have triggered her departure from the party.

However, those with ears to the ground say Mamata and Somen have inched closer over the past few months. One measure of this is the Trinamul chief’s decision to keep on hold the announcement of a candidate against Somen in the Sealdah Assembly constituency.

In 2000, Mamata had fielded Somen loyalist Jayanta Bhattacharya as the Trinamul candidate. He secured votes from some Congress legislators as well and entered the Rajya Sabha after defeating D.P. Roy, the Congress nominee chosen by Sonia Gandhi, overriding Somen’s claim.

This time, Mamata had figured that Trinamul would benefit from Somen’s organisational skills as well as his personal network across Bengal if he could be brought over to the party and given a Rajya Sabha berth ? something he has always coveted but failed to get because of the Congress high command’s reservations and hurdles introduced by rivals, sources said.

So while she gave the impression that she was considering former chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray, quiz master Derek ’ Brien, former MP Krishna Bose and Mukul Roy, who eventually got the nomination and won the election, Mamata was hoping she would be able to get Somen to take the plunge.

Ray had prepared himself to file the nomination, but did not when it became clear that Mamata wanted him to contest against Subrata from Chowringhee in the coming Assembly elections.

But Somen found himself in a spot when he was asked by Pranab Mukherjee, the state Congress president, to consider contesting the Rajya Sabha election.

“No way. Ekbar doi bhebe chun kheye gaal puriechi, aar noi (Mistaking lime for curd, I have had my mouth scalded once),” he was quoted as telling Mukherjee, in a reference to the 2000 debacle when he had found himself at the receiving end of the high command’s wrath.