Mamata: Bye-bye BJP?

Calcutta, June 22: Mamata Banerjee is ready to align with the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections but the party said it was impossible until she severed ties with the BJP.

“I’m ready to tie up with the Congress but the adjustment has to be from the gram panchayat level to the Lok Sabha. There should be a uniform understanding across Bengal,” Mamata told a news conference.

State Congress president Priya Ranjan Das Munshi called it a positive step but, to ensure an alliance, the Trinamul Congress has to quit the BJP-led NDA. “I am assuring Mamata there would be no separate tie-ups for south and north Bengal. We will follow a uniform policy, provided Mamata snaps her NDA ties,” he said.

For the May panchayat polls, Mamata said, the Congress had been keen to forge a pact in south Bengal, where Trinamul was strong, but not in the north. “They (Congress leaders) were breathing down my neck for a pact in south Bengal but about north, they were least bothered because we don’t have a strong base there. I did not approve of this dual policy,” the Trinamul chief said.

Das Munshi, also the information and broadcasting minister, said from Delhi he would clarify with Mamata his party’s stand on a possible pact.

Asked if she would quit the NDA, Mamata ducked the question. “I am leading a secular front of 18 parties in Bengal and will fight the next elections under its banner,” she said.

Some state Congress leaders were hopeful that Mamata would drift away from the BJP.

“She did not fight the Assembly bypolls in Bongaon, Balagarh and Kharba and the Lok Sabha bypolls in Malda and Katwa with the BJP. She had collaborated with the Congress,” said Subrata Mukherjee.

Das Munshi had approved “unofficial pacts” with Trinamul for the rural polls. “The results have shown that the CPM lost a large number of seats in all districts because of the unofficial Congress-Trinamul understanding,” said former state party working president Pradip Bhattacharya.

Party switch: Former Congress MP from Behrampore Atish Sinha has decided to join Trinamul. He had resigned from the party after losing the Kandi Assembly seat to an Independent fielded by party MP Adhir Chowdhury in 2006.

CPM man killed

A CPM youth wing member was shot and hacked to death in Murshidabad’s Khagra. Police said two motorcycle-borne men killed Raju Hazra, 35, about 200km from Calcutta. The CPM has called a 12-hour bandh in Behrampore tomorrow.